The Face In The Tree

We tend to things apparent
to us. Sit and look
or stand and look and shape
a rabbit out of cloud, a
wolf out of lurking shadow,
whispers in the leaves.

Bring me a cup of water and
a cup of wine and I shall
drink both, mixing chaos
out of order in my brown
belly. 

Fling the door
wide and I shall stagger
down the street shouting
in the language all drunks
know.

     Raise your arms to the stars
     when the wine runs out
     throw off your clothes
     and cry out for the one
     you desire.

When you awaken, naked in
some forest, and have
shivered yourself sober,
you will always find
another face in a tree.

My friend who chal­lenged me to write a poem per day in Decem­ber post­ed a pho­to on her Face­book wall of a tree that had a face on it. That got me think­ing about how we tend to anthro­po­mor­phize, or even more gen­er­al­ly, cre­ate order out of chaos. It’s kind of a defense mech­a­nism. I want­ed to write about that ten­sion, and using a voice sim­i­lar to Rumi’s seemed like a good idea for the con­tent.