Leafless
I gazed at the tree’s bare stem
alone at the end of the street.
It had aged but appeared
as a twig to me.
Alone, I thought.
an apparition
but I’d seen it before.
In place it stood where it
bore the sun, the wind
rain and snow every year.
Never quite dead
but I could not call it alive.
Burdened with a bag
of rolled up newspapers
I labored, doing what I could do
after I losing a job.
I’d grown to love the neighborhood
blocks staked out for development
when I stayed with my parents
just after college. They passed.
My chest ached and feet hurt
and I wondered how many times
I died, and how many times
I lived. Spring a poetic leap
but now long days of summer
wore upon me. I took a turn as I must
and saw line upon line of houses
that sprouted from wild grasses
and remnants of a farm
lands known when I was young.
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