Why Ask Me to Topple All the Trees? | Marie MacSweeney
If it is an apple
I can cut away the badness
and eat the rest,
or songs that I sing,
I will not sing all
but what the head tells
and the heart believes
or the moment decrees,
or winter days I can face cold
when it is cold I can handle,
and indoors possess other days
with books and tea,
and the cat curled up
in the heat of the hearth.
If it is sea
I might test waves with my toes
and not be covered
in the hugeness of them,
or sit at night
when the water is all moaning
and man asleep
and ask its secrets,
or swim in it.
And if it is a forest
I can whisper to it,
and it will breathe on me
or answer me,
and I might hide in it
and it will cradle me,
or be lost in it
and lostness be me …
so why now
do you mark out
the tree that is withered
and ask me to topple
all the trees?