Of Trees in December, by Myron Scott

The cemetery in December, headstones draped
with garlands and ribbons, tinsel and wreaths,
stunning red flowers and miniature trees,
silver or green, heavy with bulbs. Some person
moves through it, squats, lifts a tree, carries it off:

To take it to his wife and children, put in her widowed
mother’s  room , display on his sales room desk,
sell with the others at swap meet, present
to the receptionist he hopes to fuck,
carry beneath the bridge where he sleeps.

..

Myron Scott lives in Arizona, where he practices law, defends immigrants and works with special needs children.

Pick One, by Myron Scott

The ritual of alleged democracy:

the right-leaning leftist,
the Trump-leaning rightist.

……Your life is on the line, but it really doesn’t
matter.

..

Myron Scott is a lawyer and special needs instructor in Tempe, AZ. He is old. He lives with his wife and keeps cats. The degradation of language under Trump has led him from the precise prose of the law back to something he hopes approximates poetry. 

No Origami Cranes, by Myron Scott

I make no origami cranes this August,
no colored paper hibakusha birds.
The sky is filled with lethal drones and children’s cries.

Arizona, August 6, 2018

..

The author is a lawyer and special needs educator.

Jaguarundi, Santa Ana Refuge in the Age of Trump by Myron Scott

I crouch, a darkness in the dark
……trees. The trees have claws like mine.
……They do not cut me; my deft feet, my
……hairs like sensors protect me.

I climb the dark trees in the blue light
……at dusk and before dawn. Most days
……I hunt by day, from the shadows,
……to eat, to live; not just to kill.

Most days the two-legs come quietly, just
……looking for green jay and yellow
……kiskadee. They never see me, I’m
……quick and quiet; but I see them.

But today they came many and loud.
……They tied red cloths to my trees. They
……dug holes in the ridge that holds
……the waters. I left early, to hunt.

Tonight, my trees are gone, dead on the
……ground. I know the two-legs killed them.
……Now a wall rises too high for
……me to scale. And I, too, am gone.

..

I have lived in the southwestern borderlands for 55 years.

I am an environmental lawyer and substitute public school teacher (“special needs”).

I am not a professional poet, but the threat posed by Trump’s border wall compelled me to offer this.