Memorial Day

While we were talking about poetry in the night

and consuming the fermented harvest

without thinking of those pickers of grapes

there was shock in the faraway streets,

bombs falling in worlds across from us.

A man was weeping.

While I was thinking about planting new trees

for Memorial Day, for my father,

one for my mother,

she who spent that last day

staring into my eyes

as if seeing I was still alive,

someone then, a child

lost her legs while she was chasing a ball

with a map of earth on it.

She was, we were,

all breathing the same air,

breathing as we ate the wild mushrooms

we gathered ourselves

from deep in the great dark forest

of fallen trees.