Kacee Baker

1-31-12
Sunday Afternoon, January

I am sitting on the couch with my dog
He’s nudging my leg,
His nose is freezing and wet
His eyes are dark and glazed over
We’re both tired

It’s silent except for the swoosh and clump and occasional ping
Of the dryer spinning

It’s winter but outside it looks like early spring
And it feels like fall
The only thing that gives away the season from in here
Is the stark bare branches of the trees
And the too pale blue of the sky

In winter the sky seems pale and cloudless
Like the clouds are mixed in with the rest

There are still pigeons living outside my window
I hear them coo and I see them in the morning
There are birds everywhere this winter
Lone crows and flocks of smaller birds
Who didn’t have to fly south
I wonder if they’re missing the birds this winter
In the south


5-10-12
Friday Night, July
This is harder to write than the others
Because it hasn’t happened yet
Well, obviously I’ve lived through
Plenty of Friday nights
In plenty of Julys
But this one is still coming
I hope
I’m in The Tent
My whole families there
And one of my younger cousins
Probably fell asleep on my lap
A few of my cousins have guitars
And are trying to figure out the chords
To the song my Aunt just requested-
It is probably one my cousin wrote about
Something that will invariably make her cry
After all the older people and kids go to bed
My uncle tells stories
I’m never happier


5-10-12

Monday Morning, September
I hate Fall
And Mondays
I’ll probably be exhausted
I’ll look at the gross
Sunny sky and the
Red and orange leaves all over the ground
And think about all the reasons I hate Fall
The smell of leaves makes my nose itchy
And walking through them
Makes my ankles itchy
And I know that it will snow over the leaves
And then next spring there will be this gross
Leaf mush all over
It’s cold
And schools started
I want it to be summer again



9 January 2012

Tree Thoughts

Begin here, at the top of the giant oak tree- the branches reach farther up than any other tree in the forest. Here, where the branches brush the clouds the huge tree can see all the other trees in the forest. Each day he watches them grow. Some seem to lean toward him, hoping for support he wishes he could give them. He sees some trees nearly as tall as him, but younger with more leaves and brighter. Someday they’ll tower far above him.  He wonders if he’ll ever live to see the day. He’s getting older now. He knows that in a year not too far in the future he will fall. He looks around at the young weak trees near him, wonders which ones he’ll take with him on his descent.
Move down, to the place where his thick, steady trunk splits off into five thick, steady branches. The tree remembers when he was this small. He looked up at the small patches of blue and wondered if he’d ever be tall enough to see if the stories he’d heard about how big the sky was were true. Move back up a ways, the spot where the tree is just barely taller than the others. He remembers the slow growth of his tallest branch. More and more sky revealed to him through the other trees’ reaching branches until one day his branch reached above all the others, out of the forest and into the sky. And he could see for miles. The sky was so blue, the forest below him so huge. Ever since that day he’s been reaching, trying to see more and more of the huge, beautiful sky.
Down farther, to the place where the tree’s trunk meets the earth. He sometimes longs for the days when he was barely a sprout, when he lived among the crawling and walking things. Now, they don’t even scratch at his bark, scamper over his roots or crawl up his trunk. Birds no longer build their nests among his leaves, owls rarely perch, even for a second, on his branches. He knows why. He’s not a good risk. He’s closer and closer to falling with every breeze.
Finally, to his roots. Buried deep underground. He feels his ancestors, long gone, in the warm moist earth. Thanks them every day for the life they feed into him, hundreds of years after they’ve fallen. And then he doesn’t fear death. He mourns for the creatures who he’ll take with him, caught up in his slow fall, not so many days away now. And he thinks of the new beings who will be fed by him. The trees and bushes and grasses and flowers that will feed the squirrels and bears and deer and bees long, long after he’s gone.












1-16-12
Ode to my Space Heater

I love you space heater.
You’re tall and cylindrical
And you keep me warm at night
I usually set you to 70 or 75 degrees.

I love you space heater.
I wish you weren’t trapped in my room
Destined to live your life without seeing the world
Like I know you want to.
I can imagine the joy you’d get
Out of thawing some ice in Alaska,
Or melting some snow in Canada.

I love you space heater,
And I’d like to send you on a trip around the world
You would soar over India in a hot air balloon
And hitchhike through the hills of Switzerland
And swim the English Channel.

I love you space heater,
But if I sent you off to do these things
I’d be cold at night
And if I sent you in the Summer
I would be afraid you wouldn’t come back in time
For Winter.