Mimosa #2:  The Left, The Leaving

The innate

drive to delineate

shade cuts across—

indeed abuts—the basic

fact of the season—

whichever one you’ve chosen.

Of the many things I needed to be told,

that a cemetery is not a

multi-purpose facility

was another.  Face down, I

tried to find the secret life

distilled from underground,

but found my breath too shallow

to get at it.

Impenetrable,

what comes after.

Making a wrong turn,

I passed a playground, the swing set full,

four girls back and forth,

high in the air— their little feet

almost eclipsing the branches—

the trees were basking in it, waving

in the foreground.

 Some things are a flying buttress

for the heart—Chartres, stained windows,  undestroyed

along  the river, the red birds

lifted by the slightest

summer wind.

Mimosa tree, you have left me,

but that was not your doing.

Still, I have your image

extant in that spot in

my mind shaded

by your constant canopy— though now,

scoured clean by fractious autumn light—

I will expect your return much later

in the year—though I can't promise to be here--

a platform, a train—

a figure smeared and framed

against the night.