Poet tree or therapy

 Poetry is like a tree.
Roots, trunk, branches.
Good like that.

Mine is crowded with lichen,
Fungus, epiphytes.
Too much living on it.

When stripped clean
It becomes ordinary.
Yet I dread to clean it off.

My literary heroes do it.
Have no scrapyards in their lines.
Their poems stand cold and clear.

I leave in the quips.
Reflections, morals.
Nervous meandering.

I want purity on paper.
But hear the verdict already:
He spent time writing silly poems.
To save money on therapy.

Therapy would have been cheaper.