"The Author-Preneur with Something To Say That You'll Love To Read." #authorpreneurTJM

Pandemic III

He told me that
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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