Trees Like Stones

 I can’t look at trees today

like Mary Oliver or think

in my heart of hearts stones

are alive.

                     I’ve often suspected

such exuberance of expression

hides the more pervasive dark

that fills all those other moments,

that encircles the poem’s oasis

like disease besieging a cell.

 

We answer the invitation, the invitation

of the aching joy. We ignore on invitation

the alcoholic, chain-smoking

depression.

                            A thud

as though a shelf heavy with books

let go. Kate, on the floor, like a corpse,

like a stone.

                          Let’s not be dramatic.

She fainted. She’s fine. She’ll be fine.

Trees too fall in the forest. I hear them

sometimes, harvesting wood for the winter.