Poet Tree Town

by Shannon Rae Daniels

after Robert Hayden’s “October”

Even weighed down
by ice the dogs ran in
as my mom shut
the steel door behind them,
and covered them in towels.
She dried them
paw by paw.

by Ryan McCarty

The Normal Park discussion group
never posts about dreams
but last night, it imagined itself
as a handful of fingers, all wrapped

by Ellen Stone

For Ann Arbor and the Huron River

Blue rain over the wet street, sponging the soccer field. Rain of endlessness, the
way another river takes me home. This one neat and tidy against moss-matted
grass, sidewalk squares where too many geese say it’s easier to make do in a 
college town where kids still toss them crusts and all the adults are activists for this
or that. Because a river holds everything we need and most of what we don’t. Rivers
collect, yet the water’s never stagnant. A container, but the water’s never still.

by Corv

bring big bags of masa to your abuelita’s house. help her cook. help her walk. help her clean. hold space for her concerns. let her tell you an old story- one you’ve heard a million times.

by Adrian Kocinski

The last sighs of winter
Wake the honeysuckle flower
A subliminal alarm coursing
Messages        of awakening
Whispers from root to root
The gentle Earth stirring

by Audra Eddy

Tell me, dear Tree,
dear Elm Tree, specifically,
tell me, please,
how to be
in this world

by Onna Solomon

I watch the trees bow to it
At the edge
of the covered porch
I listen to its din
take over pour over
rooftops flooding

by Desiraé Simmons

When artificial intelligence takes over,
and is programmed to remember all
that we must forget
in order to break our bonds,
Of the before and after
Of the below and above,
will it accurately remember
What a Black Body is?

by Ciatta Tucker

i want to keep remembering the sight of fresh pink paint on white walls
having my room painted for the first time, my first sense of belonging
the move to our first house, the beginning of our salvation.
before then, we were 5

by A. Shaikh

I wasn’t looking for love, like a hosta growing 
unguarded in the neighbor’s yard. I just craved belief. 
I moved here for the poem, never expecting to stick 
around for the song. So I drank the mirage

by Petra Kuppers

At night, the Ford Lake Dam still hums.

Old Hydro buzzes in his sleep, jumps shivers down deformed bullhead catfish
spines.

Deep beneath, the Sauk Indian Trail remembers soles that anchored river to the
land—tramp, climb, traverse—footprints chime from fort to village, trade post,
friend.

by Robin Lily Goldberg

new roots
begin in fields of fresh berries,
speckled with seasonal pumpkins

blue brick roads lead to aerial silks
             filled with Pacific significance

by Leigh Sugar

Ann Arbor, 1999

After sweaty September soccer practice, only a cone from Sweet Memories —
Blue Moon — will do. It’s kind of like bubblegum mixed with
cotton candy. Maybe cotton candy flavored bubblegum? I never
don’t get sprinkles. You need the sprinkles. Anyways, who
else goes to Borders just to look at the CD covers? Vitamin C is so
famous right now for that song about moving on. It’s called

by Cam Finch

You have a river inside you. Your body 60% water. 

Your eyes gaze at me through a lens of water as I speak. 

This is a poem about water and about you. 

* 

We gathered at North Hydro Park, to discuss how to talk to you about water.

by Shayla Card-Nowlin

When we were kids – we played tag across our aunties living room, her words would chase us
“All that movin’, all that playin’, all that jumpin’. You better stop before you break something
in this house”
In this house – it is fine china-cabinet-family antique-snow globes
Is what we are in

by Abigail McFee

In Michigan, the repair man told me the historic 
building I now lived in—maroon with green 
trim, on the corner of Liberty & Division— 

by Georgi Bargamian

It’s hot and tight on Liberty
As our throng shuffles toward Fourth,
Cooperation a silent pact.
We make small talk,
Apologizing now and then for errant contact, impatient pace.

by Russell Brakefield

My friend John has no birthday
most of the time. He doesn’t know
when to celebrate his own life.
Behind the register, at the bookstore,
we sneak news and baseball scores
from ancient computer monitors.

by A.E.

The sergeant on the stand asked if pepper spray is for self defense says it’s for compliance as we watch footage of his boys causing the brain damage your friend will carry with her forever,

And I’m ten inches from a security guard’s holster fighting the urge to do what the judge won’t when you reach for my hand instead.

by Katie Hartsock

Sunrise light that lets the river melt and keep
its freezing, too, I’ve climbed this hill
for you. A squirrel scrabbles to the top
of a thin tree’s leaning, then dives down in.
I’d love to disappear into a tree; maybe