Sibling. Kinship. World.
by Michael F. Simon

Searching the madrone branches overhead
looking to see which tree flowered this year.
Imagine flowering irregularly, dropping
your few fruits to the ground, hoping
the odds are in your favor this year.

A madrone berry lying in the needle duff
of the forest floor. If I loved you more,
talking would be easy. The seed in the berry
is a dot smaller than a period.

We can’t let the period be a stop and
a separation. In time, the seed will
sprout or be eaten, while, like the berry
we decay, wondering, just wondering.

Should we work up a sweat,
not be as casual as this tree,
not leave everything to the vicissitudes
even though we know everything is left
no matter how powerful our efforts might be?

Should we open up, like cottonwoods
releasing a blizzard of tufts, should we
release what we fear and hope, let
loose nostalgia for what might come?

We’re not madrone. Just acting like we can
only flower now and then, sporadically,
a few at a time, evaporates our chance
to flourish unto each other.

The sun is setting and probably
I am lost, wondering about cottonwood,
and madrone, about how everything fits together.



 

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