The Bare Tree

My mother once said to me, “When one sees the tree in leaf, one thinks the beauty of the tree is in its leaves, and then one sees the bare tree.”

1

Now dry stone holds

Your hopeful head

Your wise brown eyes

And precise nose

Your mouth is dead

2

The silence is vast

I am still and wander

Keeping you in mind

There is never enough

Time to know another

3

Root of my soul

Split the stone

That holds you—

Be overthrown

Tomb I own

4

Darkness stored

Becomes a star

At whose core

You, dead, are

5

I will make you a landscape

Spread forth as waves run

After your death I live

Become a flying fish