the owls in the oaks call the local kids who

their forest is a cello full of questions

a hell of echoing hellos that go unheard

no likes, no lols, only haloed Aeolus

& oh yea, those kids glow with newsfeed

their mothers CEOs of the holy owe

they develop little syndromes one can name

& stare into twin mirrors set across the room

oh, they think they lack a proper ache

ha! It’s all so old, the I & its hold,

the eco-doom of a whole species

shackled in little forests of forget

coals still nursing the cold from a windy old-

timer who still speaks owl, who still

remembers the news of the poor, sold trees,

like it were yesterday, like they were Iphigenia’s

howling to the isles in the sea.

Bill Neumire