If a Tree Falls...

• Artist: Astaire
• Description: I mostly write in free verse, so this piece doesn't have a set meter or rhyme scheme. The title is supposed to be reminiscent of the age-old question, "If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear, does it make a sound?"
• Date: 07/15/2008
• Tags: tree forest suicide

We stood around her corpse:
little scientists, pretending
she was our latest experiment.
We measured her trajectory
from ledge to concrete, had numbers
to freeze her last moments in;
we took pictures, and outlined her body
in chalk.

She was our immortal question now.
She could not escape our pages and frames.

Did she scream?
Did she crack like a blood-filled egg
knocked accidentally out of the fridge
when someone reached for the milk?
Could we have heard her
if we listened hard enough?

Her body never said a word.
Broken, it traveled through the night:
sirens blaring above, tires screeching below.

All we can guess is that her mind was a forest,
and no one was there to hear her make a sound.

Comments

[Casca 7]

Well, you say she did not fall in her mind, yet "her mind was a forest." What you describe is a very lonely thing for the girl, that is all I meant by suggesting that as a theme be it a minor one.

One good thing about this poem is that there is a depth added to it each time you read it.

[TedTheTall]

wow... that's all I can say

[Astaire]

Casca, thank you for your honest opinion!

1. The sound was not a literal sound.

2. She did not fall in her mind. She literally committed suicide.

3. The point is not loneliness; the point is being trapped in your own mind, not able to tell anyone that you have problems. In this case, it literally killed the girl, and the POV of the poem is from the people who found her after the fact.

[Casca 7]

hi. thanks for commenting on my poem.
For yours:
You use good imagery, but I find this poem almost a contradiction. It all depends on whether you consider the sound only a literal sound or if it could represent being noticed. Also, I don't quite get how the forest was her mind. If she only fell in her mind it would make more sense to say that she went crazy. Otherwise, it would be better to make loneliness the forest that she died in. Just a thought...

[Astaire]

Aw, thank you both. whee

KEEP THOSE COMMENTS COMING, especially if you downvote. It helps me to know what fault people find in my work so that I can improve. heart

[LittleAshleyKitty]

Oh wow. This is absolutely fantastic. I could make sweet, sweet love to this poem wink

[Aphrodite f l y t r a p]

<3
Amazing as always.