let us create

for ourselves

a varied coast

they said

to themselves

one day on

the level marshes

upon which to build anew

so peninsulas & parks

were laid down

boulevards & towers

took shape

along the lake

a city

it was there

I was born

while bird songs

intensified

distant dogs barked

& children

across the way

shouted

& called

among the trees

I was taken

to remember only

the grey branches

stretching up

the shagbark hickory

majestic, giant

cosmic in scope

from the top of which

on a clear day

you could see

above the other trees

leaves slapping

each other

noisily below

moving breezes

creating sound

you could see

the Fox River

stretching away

a brown curl

far beyond

the slight hills

& leftover woods

of the place

where once the glaciers

met the plains

called the midwest

I was taken there

but I grew

& the shagbark

who had been there

for centuries

making the place

his own

whose huge

handlike leaves

yellowed in fall

& whose trunk

was plated

with strips of bark

jutting out

like wooden petals

the shagbark

blessed me

& sent me on my way

to change & grow

the shagbark

blessed me one time

& it is enough