Poetry by Pam Crow

      John W. Iwanski CC




I can’t stop thinking about the trees

the ones planted in our city’s urban desert
where bare streets, cracked sidewalks
held the most heat.

I worked there in a shabby building filled
with dented metal desks, the off-gas smell
of cheap carpet the state laid down.

This was the poor side of town—junked cars,
newer and deadlier drugs. In the burning
heart of summer this part

of the city reached a record peak: 118 degrees.
Families sizzled with violence, assault, overdoses.
I drove from house to house checking

for bruises, for the chemical smell
of cooking meth. A caseload of children, ages
zero to thirteen. City planners decided we needed

green: a canopy of leaves to cool things down.
Shade. Dozens of trees were planted in the searing heat
without enough water. Two years in a row. Most died.

I was asking questions of the children, taking notes
for court. “What do you call this part of your body?”
“Do you know the difference between truth and lies?”

One girl in a Snoopy t-shirt used crayons and paper
to show me she had no words. Outside, the trees,
neglected, could not offer anything.

The children are small bells that ring inside my chest.
I mourn the slender saplings that turned brittle
in the sun, Japanese maples, Douglas firs.

I ached for relief I was not able to offer. I don’t know
if the following year trees were planted in cooler weather, 
when rain soaked the soil. I hope more and more survived.

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Pam Crow is an award-winning poet who lives in Portland, Oregon. Pam’s work has been published in Green Mountain Review, Carolina Quarterly, Southern Poetry Review, Ploughshares, and other national journals. She is the winner of the Astraea Emerging Lesbian Writers award and the Neil Shepard award for poetry. Her book Inside This House was published by Main Street Rag press in 2008.