If I were Frank O’Hara I’d tell you it is 12:31 in the afternoon.
I’m not. You knew that, though we’ve never met
“in person.” Are some people never in their person?
Donald Trump, for example. Is he a person? I scratch
my head. Trump calls immigrants “animals,” denying them
personhood. Today he is running for President
again, and I sort of wish I lived when Frank O’Hara did
and Trump had never been.
I smile and look out my window, thinking of you, seeing
the fully loaded mesquite branches, all those green leaves
and the clusters of yellow blossoms that are like lines of poetry
hanging down or raised like single arched eyebrows
and now a breeze just moved a big branch in circles
counterclockwise. It is a blessing no god has asked me
which tree I would like to be reincarnated as, I’d be so
indecisive, would
keep changing my mind. If I were a tree
writing this then I’d say this is the wind
moving through me, me, an American tree addressing Canada.
.
John Levy
.