some years are good
years and some years
are bad,
not just in personal
growth, but in
relationships with
spouses, and families,
and friends.
He was not the
only hospice patient
to tell me this,
but he was
the first.
He was glad
that he was dying
in a year that
had been
good for everyone -
himself, his wife,
his kids, and friends.
Others
were not always
so lucky.
When we open
up a tree in felling,
we find a painting of
concentric circles
moving closer and further
away from one another
in the size and the
color of the ring.
Tough times of slow
growth appear
as the thin dark
rings of autumn
and winter.
Plentiful times of fast
growth appear
as the wide light
rings of spring
and summer.
The death of a child,
or spouse or parent
tightly darkening a
piece of our trunk
in a narrow band.
Tendernesses and
fondnesses of all sorts
freely lightening a
piece of our trunk
in a wide band.
I have felt
these numbnesses and
celebrations inside
over days and days
and days. Seeing them
as rings of my me
has shifted a piece of
me to know
these things we feel
are natural and leave
lasting marks on
our landscapes within
and without.
Groans and gales
marking us with
pox of pain and
pleasure now are
carving us with
markers of this
pandemic and
its strange, harsh
newness we have not
felt in this measure
before. But the
cutting down of life
is about the same.
The warm dankness
of an opened tree
trunk rises and fills
the air with a tannin
that lends itself to the
peatiness of the loam.
It has only one will,
to intoxicate the man
who knows to stand still,
close his eyes, lean
back and inhale.
Marking the giving of
this life and the laying
bare of all these years of
struggle and repair is
sometimes the only
offering.
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