Death of a Dutch Elm

You stand lifeless
On the roadway
Branches like bear bones
Or the dead
Ivy crawls all over
Cover your nakedness like a shroud
Eaten by cancer
Ashamed you cry for burial
Fat crows like vultures
Chant the dead requiem
On your leafless branches
Standing alone naked in
The midst of summer blossom
Like victims of famine
You remind us of our forefathers
In their angry hungry desolation
Who like you were stripped naked and isolated
Alone in the lonely tyranny of poverty
We will burn you down
And cast your ashes to the wind
Only the wind
Can scatter death