Cottonewoods in the Park

Cottonwoods in the Park (Los Alamos en el Parque)

In the park of distorted statues,

those gnarled neighbors,

who vie in disfigured shame

with arms that do not cuddle children,

point their naked fingers

stuck on fossilized limbs

at one another,

as if frozen in debate.

Posed, as if to survive all this

takes roots that never give up,

but claw downward,

down in search of life

deep in the damp tunnels

below the parched floor of the human world.

Poised in stoic testimony

of time-battered agony,

abused by the wand

of rain and wind

pain and torment,

those twisted icons,

the cottonwoods, stand

fixed in a park

littered by people who flee

from more than

the dry death of summer heat.

                   -- C.S. Cholas, June 1996,

                             Alamo, Texas