I was given an idea of the good
and I was taken quickly from
the same idea, though at first it was as simple
as a tree I saw the ground, conserving summer,
populate with geese, some deer, the pachysandra.
The good was what I had without myself.
When I describe it now, the whole scene strikes me
as the remnants of the kingdom of ends.
Or the Marian lyric when the help for pain
has only recently departed.
I was given
understanding without mercy, over and over.
Understanding only ever changed the tree
to a darker color, light and dark
and light and dark and darker still
like a manifestation of the March wind.
I was given waiting for the person I loved,
for children, given time, and I was taken
hostage by the elements of time before I knew it.
I was placed without my knowledge or approval
in the middle of the tree and grew within it.
