Mourning Friends

I drive by the old park
hand weakly covering my dropped mouth.
“Watch the road,”
a voice reminds.

What remains at the park,
bleached, corpse white
in the first morning light
under rain-remnant clouds

Are piles of tangled legs and arms,
hair falling around brother bodies,
trunks crisscrossed, crucified,
bunched unceremoniously, disrespectfully,

A holocaust of trees destroyed
for bandstands and parking lots.
Earth ripped and ravaged
and left to dry.

My lunch time friends,
homes to countless, now gone -
disturbed, disturbing,
making way for entertainment and economy.