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.
