Friday, December 31, 2010

Song For An Old Tree


The birds stripped the old tree
Of its fruit
In a single night.

Was it a dream, how they descended
From the sun--
The ravening eclipse?

Thirty years, not a stump remains
Of the orchard,
Only a field of mown grass.

Where the roots sucked everything
From the soil
There are shallow bowls.

My two girls appear, one singing,
One shouting,
Beseeching with arms wide.

Each day I reach up like branches
Into the light
To be devoured by caresses.