As my contribution to this delightfully meandering thread, here is a cri-de-coeur on behalf of our inarticulate arboreal friends against the insensitivity of poets, or at least those (unlike myself) who publish in traditional media.

Notably, this little sonnet is a double acrostic, with the first and last letters of each line spelling out the first, while preserving rhyme and metre. If you think such a contrivance is easy to assemble, I invite you to try one yourself.

Acrostics on paper

A cross sticks on paper; trees weep
Convinced that no man heeds their plea
Red cedars, bereaved, cannot sleep
Ovid gulps down his minestrone
Sequoias, sequestered, afar
Shed tears from their loftiest height
Stenographers swill at the bar
Trees moan to the moon, bark stark white
Ionesco, egged on by their roe,
Chews sturgeons entire, and whole cows!

Keening cries of the weeping willow
Stab silence and dead souls arouse
Our poets enjoy jours de soupe –
Night’s falling, limbs tremble, leaves droop.

Rusty