The Trees Do Not Clutch

i.

Everything I know about comfort

was gained in the starry waters of my mother.

Nothing will be this way ever again,

a weight that almost bitters

honey on the spoon,

fleece of a newborn animal,

the smell and sound

of hard rain in the summer.

My deepest wish is to gather

these things together in some

cosmic basket. Keep them bound

in the finest spider-silk and safe,

a talisman for the wanderer, who arrives starving,

never having been able to remember

the stars, the water,

the oatmeal soaked in silence overnight,

to be eaten with apples in the morning.

ii.

I go to my sister’s new apartment

for the first time one February.

It’s dark when I finally arrive at her door.

She’s making lamb stew, this

other prodigal daughter;

hands me a glass of merlot, tells me

it’ll be fifteen or so, but come sit and tell her:

how am I doing?

The grief of every blow:

it lightens. Just enough.

It’s lighter, after all,

to be known.

iii.

The trees do not clutch

at the last of their finery.

This has taught me,

season after shifting season,

to release what is dead, or

no longer

mine to hold

with grace, or at least –

with less and less screaming

or bargaining, or otherwise carrying on,

as my mother would say.

This loosening of the grip,

this unclenching of the jaw, this drop

of my battle-tensed arms:

these (and, of course

my mother)

have taught me

to walk up to the mouth of winter,

wearing nothing but peace,

and say: yes. I understand

it’s time.

We will stay as warm

as we can. We will listen

for the run of honey,

for the stirring of the earth.