Month: May 2019

Docked

a stationary ship is the embodiment of tragedy
built for long journeys, Christened with names like
Wind Dancer and Carpe Diem, tethered to the dock
–seizing nothing

as much a fixture as landlocked houses
and roads that wind through every place
but never move. wouldn’t it be something
to see the road drive away?

how many of us are stuck, built to wander
a much bigger world?

I’m nothing like that boat
bobbing and bobbing in one place
with only the changing sky above me
and the changing earth below, tethered
to my life

some things are made to stay in one place

I’m a tree that dies where it stands
taking roots and growing old as my canopy spreads
holding the landscape within my branches
that’s what it means to be a tree


Stratum

the oldest versions are stacked
like layers of dermis, hardened
over years that became decades
until middle age found me
counting the silver strands that shine
like falling stars across the lusterless surface
of my fossilized youth

my first two decades lie frozen
within the merciless amber of time
thin as parchment
delicate as spun sugar, disintegrating
beneath the droplets of years

by my third decade I basked
in the comfort of motherhood
babies in tow, each season a gift
alight with the glimmer
of a connected whole

for the first time, I was more than myself
no longer young, but still young enough
to feel life’s shine

Envy

I’m jealous of the wintering sparrows
that huddle, shivering
within the shelter of my arborvitae
it’s a marvel to behold creatures
who keep such close company
with death

what must it be like to live
until the very moment you die
to simply fall out of the sky
an ember extinguished
a bright note, quelled
by a roving predator
or the insolence
of reflective glass?

birds don’t waste a thought
on the inevitability of endings
because they have the sky
and the sky has them
There is no lingering
when you live by the wing
no long, protracted dying

imagine what it’s like
when you’re not afraid to fall



Heartwood

of course the trees have names
and stories, a history that’s tragic
and spectacular
I’ve just discovered them
after all these years
of placing my feet
on pine floors
in spruce houses
curled up inside
the bodies of trees
never wondering
about their beginnings
or the fabric of forests
how the trees talk
how they must want to live
as much as every vibrant thread
that pulses with chemical synthesis
the center of a tree is dead
it’s the heartwood
that surrounds us