Clear eyes and hope

A poem

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Clear eyes and hope

Photo by Adarsh Kummur

Garden walks #2

The line between ruin and repose
was left behind in September,
once October cut through it
with a sharp edge of the air.

Example. This chestnut that has twisted
to the sky for one hundred and fifty years,
now I’m guessing the years
but it looks like death,
dropped shriveled leaves in July and I was certain
it must have been given two months to live,
but now October and some leaves still
feed from somewhere.

Don’t get me wrong, it can’t be good news
but time’s passage has me questioning my memory,
was it July, death when every other tree
was at the height of life,
or was it September and simply began to dry
a touch early?

I don’t want you to die, dear tree.
Your majesty is magnificent and I wish you
back to life, or just back to autumn when
small death and small decay are felt by all,
or even just back to later years, wearing white hair
like most who stare this Monday afternoon. 

Only twenty-nine branches 
wave your green fans 
and you used to wave them from every branch,
your prospects look grim,
the blight that ruined your cousins
must have found you.

I do hope but I’m told hope is for fools,
so I’ll look with clear eyes and hope
that when your neighboring sweet gum sheds it’s green,
I can visit you again and know you simply sleep
for the long winter ahead.

Clear eyes, I cannot find them through this hope.

I’ll visit you next spring. 

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Thank you for reading! What strikes you, speaks to you, or stirs in you while you read this piece? I look forward to whatever dialogue happens here, and as always, I will be following up with a Reflection essay on how this poem emerged into being.

Brian

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