The Base

Poison is in the wood. The sap
Runs thin, the bark sheds off. We scaled
The tallest pine and found it rotting at the top.

And yet the lower leaves are green,
Or almost green, and scarcely thinning
Where the light is kind. Who sealed

Those veins and faked that color could
Shrivel the world’s enormous skin
And make it burn and glow

Like all the lights of Europe. So
It burns and burns. The sap runs thin.
And here we build, and gather, and are fed.

--Weldon Kees