Poetry of Issue #7        Page 42

VISION ­ THE DANCERS

Dancers lie among
felled trees the
audience doesn't know
are they alive or dead
then gravely rise and
dance the wounded
wilderness of lost
graves ­ slow pavanne
among the rotting trunks

& past all hope they
climb to platforms
in the trees where they
sing the living death
of forests, ferns, needles,
leaves, boles, fungi,
grasses, bush and marsh,
they will name them all,
all ­ the few that remain
and the many that are
gone, then perhaps
their song will last so
long that they'll sing life
back into trees ­

and down below in hands
of men the chainsaw chorus
coughs, sputters, catches and
tries to drown them out.

  Chris Brandt