^{Level II: Basic Assessment}

All my life I was a hammer:  
I struck at everything I touched. 

Then I commit a few Thursdays  
to trees. I am not gentle but I could be. 

Around one tree, I try my basic circling  
steps, tap the tree’s bark with my mallet  

and listen for the difference: alive?  
dead? alive? dead? alive? still alive?  

I muscle coils of clay and learn  
the same lesson again and again– 

could be clay trees family trees  
literal trees: I hear the precarious things.  

I go phone-my-forester asking  
about sounding trees, about my ears?  

How I want to save a few trees  
but don’t understand what I hear.  

All my life I swung the wrong things.  
I put down mallet and muscle,  

circle the tree’s girdling roots  
and ask, “Where does it hurt?”  

The forester returns my call.  
He’s glad he caught me this evening. 

He heard what I asked about trees  
and ears. “It’s subtle, takes practice.”