Tree
who catches
every
sunrise and sunset in your boughs
you
have been my closest friend, the
witness
of this story, too short and far
too
long to yet tell me its meaning.
You
have heard it all. The scream of the train
every
time it crushes the land west where I
cannot
go but have reached for all this time,
the
way you reach. Unmoving and traveling
all
the way to the ends of the fleeing universe.
The
silence, crushing silence between
there
and here. Only you would know.
You
have opened yourself to
the
dance of the smoke of every
smoldering
prayer I burn here beneath
you.
Witnessed every ceremony between
me
and the sun that abandons me
right
after I give my heart to it again.
And
again you make me trust
by
the force of saying nothing,
by
the force of being, by the force
of
your unseen movement in the night,
underground,
in every one of the
directions,
knowing you could cover
the
whole world if enough time went by.
You
pull me into your hidden rings
one
by one until I see the substance
of
every year of desperate survival,
the
truth of what all forget but you.
You
live and die and resurrect
and
survive unnoticed, sure of what
you
hold, what sap has gone deep in
your
veins, forced by the sudden cold.
With
a great crack
you
thrown down your soul
in
each limb that surrenders
to
lightning, showing me
you
are broken too, and nothing
can
rob you of beauty that is.
You
are young, you assure me,
you
will die soon enough, you tell me,
you
will live forever and you still
know
nothing, you say—
You
are just as alone as I am,
I
say, unbelieving, as unknown, as
solitary
and confined to your own unseen
movement,
as powerless to change
the
elements you brave.
Yet
I know I'm wrong
every
time I sit near you, every time
I
lie beneath your great sheltering body
to
watch the bright planets and muted stars
we
know have been assigned to be seen
by
us alone, from this exacting
city
plot of earth.
I
know you're telling me
what
I don't want to hear,
the
lavish questions to my questions,
the
hope that drags me back
into
this strange arena with nothing
to
fight with but gnarled fists.
You
force me to sing with you
every
time the wind rises
in
our midst.
