Tree Lung

Tree Lung

On the occasion of student artist Rachel Bultje’s installation, “Breath of Life” at Chatham Kent Secondary School (June 14, 2016)

I am what’s left of the Orange Osage and Ash,

their remains lie with me now,

post execution of their roots so

that passers-by won’t slip on a

falling fruit.

I am a museum exhibit of the extinct

Protectors of our health. Each

carefully manufactured leaf, once

healed 2,000 lungs

diseased with asthma, viruses,

exposure to the worst sort of

world.

These limbs used to sway free,

filtering the oily toxins from

their families below, releasing

the diamond-clear air of life.

Now they are bound in this cage

crinoline, as an example:

‘What not to do’

‘What has been done’.