Poetry: Positive Feedback & Tree Waltz

by Linh Nguyen

Positive Feedback

ever wonder why we destroy something so beautiful?

that river where our blood runs
beating in measured harmonies
to life surrounding, singing in glory

that forest of trails where we once walked joy escaping through quaking leaves,
each footstep lighting stories,
inspiring movies, music, and poetry

that ocean of our origin, waters of wisdom
of foam-swept jewels and deep blue treasures,
adorn with coral reefs and ancestral anemones,

dancing in sea-life

that laughter and bright-eyes spark,
windows to our souls, shadows to our selves,
images of our "God"

all, that gives answers to who we are
stunted by solipsism, gored through greed
hushed by bombs and bullets, silenced,

stolen and buried in graveyards
of steel, plastic, concrete, chemicals, walls,
dividing, growing, burning, feeding, revealing...


ever wonder why we destroy something so beautiful?

Tree Waltz

every tree rises within us,
their branches reach for our breath
growing within each heartbeat
calling forth the song
in each inspiration,
lungs filling to form
what cannot be seen,
but felt, here
in the wave that moves us
dissolving in exhalation
into a dance forming within a pause
and flowering in-between

finding shape in curving branches
how they hold what has fallen
awakening our skin to snow
our sternum to strangers

as resonance rises through our roots
and drums the dead to life
buds open in the listening
to wisdom hardened in heartwood
whispering through aging rings
secrets proffer in tactile invitation
the bliss of fractal unison

is it in the silence or the
language of her that moves us?
hands to air, to snow
to embody the music of the unseen
to hold in prayer
the forgotten songs of
which we waltz to

when war of words stain the cell
and pompous pixels pain the heart
peace arrives in a waltz
with trees