for Mary Oliver, Poet

I

That tree
whose leaves lost
their incandescent shimmer,
spiraling
out somewhere
before I knew
the branches were bare.
Still, its bark and trunk,
and certainly 
its roots, were there,
spidering
out and down
under ancient moss and loam,
furrowing an alluvial sea,
its red-green tendrils
reaching 
out to grasp
its other being.

II

One
curled husk of leaf
skitters across
last night’s
black ice pond,
an unread letter,
pinwheeling over
the broad, slick disk,
shining and dark
as
a starling’s 
blue-black wing.


III

Perfect
heft
and heavy,
the dense
round stone
that I meant
to save
found
my pitcher’s arm
instead.
Hurled
ecstatically
high and far
as gravity allows,
arcing up
through the naked
tree 
and down,
smashing the black
ice
hard and loud
as a heartbeat
hammering
RATATAT-ATat, atat,
tat, tat, tat –
skidding into
softest,
banksedge snows,
echoing far and near;
far and near;
echoing
and
echoing,
still.
                        

Silence encircles
the carnelian-draped bier,
flowers and candles,
upturned faces
shimmering in halflight,
Murmuring 
— “O Rei,” —
The King,
lying 
in perpetual state,
floating above 
marble and slate,
once more.
The translucent veil’s
netting,
gently draped
between 
two worlds:
Quicksilver,
and Grace.