Sunday, December 10, 2017

Roots



The old sugar maple at the southeast corner of the house had been declining for two years, and despite a wet summer its canopy was brown and bare long before autumn.  Yesterday, men with chain saws took it down limb by limb, leaving a gaping hole in the sky where the tree’s green depths once harbored hummingbirds. On winter nights I used to look out at its windswept branches, combed by fingers I never saw.

moon shadows
on the window pane 
. . . the silver
of my mother’s hair 
fresh-washed in death



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