At chest-height, the poplar's bark bears a mark -
heart-shaped.
In another continent, the Chippewa carved a slice -
of the same form and size -
from their native type of this hybrid tree.
Diced and desiccated, made into a tea
as a cure for cardiac conditions.
I think, 'Synchronicity!'
But this tree is dying.
On the south side,
its few leaves - heart-shaped -
are yellowed and drying.
Before Fall, they are falling.
I lean in to touch;
feel beneath fingers, fever,
a yearning for water,
a thought, transferred from trunk to ear:
What can I say
to a world that doesn't want to hear?
Yet the tree, yes, this very tree,
wears in wood its healing heritage.
What of me?
My message is borne by blood and bone,
bound in fibres,
ferried by the flashes of neurotransmitters.
All I believe is embodied.
Whatever gift I've been granted is gristle and muscle,
sealed securely in my sack of skin.
Can I excise an idea from flesh
when viscera seems
not amenable to verbal translation?
All this pulse and rhythm is mystery;
an unlanguaged library;
a corpus unsignified.
And so,
what can I say
to a world that doesn't want to know?
You make wonderful connections in this poem. The writing of the poem helps to answer the question by trying to communicate something that's hard to say in words. And even though the world doesn't want to know, there is value to lives, including poplar trees.