The Day After All That Was Good.

the lake's been dredged and dried up for months and all they found were old tires and bits of broken glass. "everything went to rot when the fishermen left," the man next to me says. this day is not good but faking it anyway. sunrises. first breaths of spring. and the birds singing. beatiful words. all is well so says the sun. but i am remembering when this tree hung over the water. whispered its bracnhes into it. when there were more trees and they didn't charge addmission to see them. i am remembering how you died decades ago and all your devoted disciples tried returning to their boats and baiting nets, but there wasn't enough water.

*photograph by larry mcgrath, Australian Sand Dune Field

To Accomidate For The Brillance of Man

I will tell you your story from my point of view. Though there were several decades in there where I missed it all and a few where I chose to. I will tell you your story, though you may not recognize it now through all the history books and blackboards. I will tell you your story though perhaps you have already seen it a better way ‘round. Way up there with all the wreckage and stars.
I found you when I was walking in the monsoon and stubbed my toe on your feet and gathered the courage to climb your branches. When I was young I climbed (and didn’t mind the callouses on my feet) to your hear your leaves shake and talk and shake back again when my face was close enough. I would watch your great trunk tremble and tell of all the bodies bent beneath you. lovers. hippies. the romans to hide their swords. and marys rounded bastard belly . Later, maybe because my mom was tired of my bruised knees or because we were running out of Band-Aids. My father climbed high into your branches holding boards and a rusty hammer and into your arms laid a room for us. and I would climb and read you where the wild things are and a wrinkle in time. fight battles from your boughs. And on Sundays I would sit to watch you talk to the sky. The way we would if we could hear its language. But then I started having to wear stockings and go somewhere else to learn things. and I gathered philosophy and politics and so many words in my arms I no room for holding your branches. now I am sorry it took me so long to unfold the map that led back to you. and am glad you didn’t mind the wait and said you didn’t understand time anyway, that yesterday you watched as the world was made.



*photograph by neek nick, books

Apple Tree

i crossed my fingers and wrote a song. to speak of things that were true and only seemed like death if you did not know the face. of things that welcomed you back to the dust you were made of. i call it "apple tree"

Black berry blossom tree,
Bend your boughs and carry me.
Black ice bottomless,
Bring me down into your darkness.

Black soil buried seed,
Break this ground that covered me
Black boat steady oars,
Sail me safely to my savior.

Chorus
Bury me beneath your garden apple tree
By my beloved with bruises on his knees
Have you haste my friend, I hear them welcomin me

home

Black letters, take your time,
Write me barefoot, brave, and kind
Black coast, fishing wire
Cast me close I have grown tired.

Chorus

*photograph by shang chanti. tree