The Trees—They Were Once Good Men
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and good women,
who for whatever
reason were never
given the keys to
heaven,
and who stand now
arms outstretched
to one another, some
entangled, some even
grown together, in
more than solidarity
but still afraid to fall
in love again.
From
these, in this thin
stand here one sees
one’s vulnerability:
one’s slender life,
one’s limbs lifted
high.
The air.
Sun-
riddled good-byes.
The wood.
Listen—
Can you hear your
deepest prayer?
Your farthest flung
flitter of shame?
Your heaviest sigh,
sung like a name?
No.
No, nor can I.
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TODD BOSS
“The Trees—They Were Once Good Men” is from Yellowrocket (W. W. Norton, 2008) and is reprinted by permission of the poet. Poem copyright Todd Boss 2008, all rights reserved.
More about Todd Boss.
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One Response to “BOSS | BURGHARDT | “The Trees—They Were Once Good Men””
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This piece was first given to Debra Barsha, a composer, who created the etherial soundscape for it. So when video artist Emma Burghardt started work on the motionpoem, she was working from an already completed voice-over with music.
It’s an amazing experience to have a video artist care, so thoroughly and thoughtfully, about a poem you’ve written. As the co-director of Motionpoems, I get to see this happen with our poets time and time again. The writing of poetry is a very solitary act. A single poem can take hours, months, or years to get right. But a motionpoem demands sometimes hundreds of hours from a video artist too, and that mirrored investment on the part of another artist is a thrilling thing for a poet.
I love many of the choices Emma made in this very idiosyncratic piece. I love the moment when the central character goes up on tiptoe. I love when the colors turn to a hellish black and white, shifting the tone in a way that both is and is not in the poem. I love the final image of a falling figure, which of course is not in the poem at all.