Walking in a cemetery when I’m six
after the thunderstorm
among gray slabs like frozen mice—
trees sprawled, dead, inert
gaping holes, raw roots.
Sometimes I remember
the death of the everliving trees
and transient, fragile humans,
their bones laid underground
like tiny pianos everywhere
playing the anthem of soil, rain, tangling roots
becoming the music of all that could never be.
Looking into trees, gnarled like old people
sparkling emeralds catching a quilt of summer lights
lightning, like truth, strikes the tree—
the home of its secret self—
flat as a fallen dancer to that strange ground.
A tree is made to live forever—why should it fall
and all those little meaningless graves, which signal decay,
rest untouched?
A name, a stone, the caress of carnations
and angels with golden flutes—
is this death, or a newer, stranger sort of life?
Even a grave is still a self
and I will raise my hands
like the tree I’m bound to become
feel wisdom smile on me through a parcel of skies.
Oh, anchor me to the ground
and bury my weary kisses in stories
when the storm
meets the tree
set me free.