Wednesday

It is like this:

a barren tree on a hilltop lone

against the marbled slate of

the winter sky.

 

You may sit

beneath its sweeping limbs waiting

as roots curl around

your extremities,

 

and sink your

mad recollections amidst the loam

of many predecessors as

spring beckons.

 

Or you may read

messages in its posture and stance,

and hang various indecencies

from the nearest sprig.

 

But you cannot

Be surprised to find yourself tied

In exotic knots and swinging

Loosely with others.

 

For it is a

generator of practical hatreds

you may hang anything

from its branches.

 

But you may also

Weep alone in its shadow and know the

solace of its obstruction

and only then walk away

 

braced for the wind.