In a plot of beech oak sweetgum and pine
A dead sweetgum stands tall as its neighbors
Though riddled with invertebrate excavation
The dust of its diminishment heaped about its base

It gives forth no leaf
Nor none of the little maces trodden underfoot
Its bark flakes its pith wastes
Never to serve as canopy or commodity

The antique pen was fashioned of wood
Its later version of wood veneer
A subsequent imitation of wood-grain polymer
Engineered compound of petroleum product

But the rock-oil itself volatile mineral
Owes its being to vegetable reactions
And we burn the remnants to steal their storage
Of life and food and heat from the sun

But here the theft was for organic molecules
And cellulose is a polymer too so what’s the difference
The pen crumbles the carbon chain slips
That the tree stands however briefly is a miracle

The sweetgum was young when it died
As slender as two hands in a ring
A nominal pause in advance and decline
Flesh is as grass and the world is as dust