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I whisper to the tree, the tree,
the murmuring Tree
“I might take action”
Is romantic
Snow sun melts into streams increasing in volume
I control with my lips
Around History. Our eyes meet. White ancient
Roar I hear stream-
Side, my invisible dress threatening
A slow death. The rest I want to carry
So I listen
For the tree, and its never quite obsolete magic.
Copyright © 2016 by Rob Schlegel. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 13, 2016, by the Academy of American Poets.
Why are you grieving?
Because the others are grieving.
You are not compelled to grieve independently?
The grass needs raking.
The grass?
The leaves. I will build a fence to keep them from the sea.
Then will you help the others?
Tollers ring bells even the dead can hear,
a ringing such that I am bound to.
And the leaves?
When they are taken by the waves I give them names,
desiring in this act a homecoming
to which I am constantly denied
She used to sit on the forest floor and I would cut her hair until it piled up onto the ground, like ash. Tonight, her name is a leaf covering my left eye. The right I close for the wind to stitch shut with thread from the dress she wore into the grave where the determined roots of the tree are making a braid around her body.