Klimt: Tree of Life
Between the clothes and sharp morning
all golden and shining and radiant
and the downy wrap of solemn evening
all starry and holding and softening
grows the tree of life, the tree we wear
the tree we imagine, the tree of yesteryear.
And all the coils of every living branch
curling upon itself wrapped in light
seeking light, golden light held in hand
and all the tiny brimming bursts of fuzz
bristling open, cottony and welcoming
pulling us downward into the sleep of old.
Where we begin and end is tied up inside
the frame and the future and the roots
where paired twos have loved and born
where singles searched and found remorse
and all that withers has once unfurled
found night and breath and shining of stars.
What gifts your father have led you to wield
returns in us, our gazes beguiled toward gifts
and gilding layered on thick, year after year
mothers to be become mothers long loved
and mothers who never begin or end simple
curl and unfurl and lay quiescent as another.
There beneath your roots lies the fleeting family
wandering off through the earth and rising
like steamy wreaths that flitter out and whisper
there in the universe of boxes and uncoding
reborn as packages and plutos and meteoric
collisions, unbirthed and rebirthed, another seed.
Copyright © Sheri Fresonke Harper | Year Posted 2017
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