Near the shooting range
alongside the deadpanned river
whited-out with salinity,
a triptych of three blue trees
acting as metonymies acting
as prompts and indicators
for depression and loss,
their truncated bodies,
their lopped limbs
and torsos bent
and twisting towards
each other, always in media res
as strains of surrealism
activated by a mode of being
on the land that never adds up,
never resolves when it looks
out over degraded soil
that is only a medium
to take fortunes across
generations while fears
and angers are roused by agitators
against immigration, against
different spiritual shadings
under trees only remaining
as blue echoes of the health
that was that might still be
if the guns are broken down,
the phone towers disconnected;
if those disembodied blue trees
dance or freak out or just
stride away from being
scenery, reminders, parodies.