An Animal, I Poem by Ben Partenay

I think I knew these trees
when sweat, like many hundred prayers,
fell off me
and into the ground.

I think I knew these trees
as sunlight struggled and sifted,
all gilt edged and phosphorous,
with morning.

I think I knew these trees, the same
ones that creaked with wind and talked
amongst themselves, at night when
the moon lay down in branches.

I too lie down
at the end of the day with my thoughts
and they are of all
the many littered space of dreams.
I think I know these trees.
I sit in their branches.
I too cry out, when the wind
blows, and you, are the sometimes
knot over which I grow,
and grow, and grow.

I think I knew these trees, and maybe
they knew me
as an animal,
as some young thing
that never put down
roots.