Apologies to all. Due to the 4th of July holiday, Monday’s Poem of the Week is just arriving now. Hope it’s worth the wait, and that you all enjoyed your celebrations.
The Tree
Memory believes before knowing remembers.
- William Faulkner, Light in August
Grassy earth bulges above.
Branches stretch away,
twig and fade in leaves.
dim with the other side
of light lapping underneath,
then all forever to fall.
He tastes the salt,
feels the heat sliding
up his back, gritty
bark runging curled knees.
The sun, unseen, throbs
at the center of things.
Face flushed with gravity
of blood, he senses again
in voices ringing up-
side down, outside in,
the presence like a breathing
closer than his own.
Shade tightens in a dome.
He scrunches
to that first curious pose
then flings himself swinging
like a bell’s pounding tongue
and calls out to the only
one he cares to show –
“Hey, Mo-o-o-o-om!”
Through the dark glint
of her glasses she smiles,
then shouts from sunlight,
“I see you, I see you!”
Then the child’s spine shivers
in wonder, terror, joy,
as though separate threads
silver, gold, black –
the void from self to soul –
were now woven into one.
John Savoie
Medico Musings 