Before the Fall

September 10th of your seventy-first year
Finds me sitting by the picture window
Staring at the maple tree you planted
In the front yard and which served

As second base for kickball games
You never saw us play because
You always worked the  night shift 
And then slept all day,

Like you do now on the rented hospital bed
While family gathers round to lend
An air of festivity to this,
Your third to final Saturday.

You don't know what to say, and I
Don't either, so I make you chocolate milk
And cut the straw so you can
Reach it easier- just like you used to do for me.

And when you use it to blow bubbles
Pointlessly, we can't stop giggling, 
And this is the moment I accept
Your death and mine,

And the maple tree drops its first leaves
Of the season in a gust of wind
That rattles through the window pane,
Your glass half full of chocolate milk. 

You Live One Ambiguity Away

From my neighborhood but I 
See you as a contradiction, fictional even,
Basically existing on another plane than this one- that I’m on.

I stand behind you at the funeral,

Black fabrics draping us like makeshift uniforms,

Your head hung low like mine,

Separate lines of interconnection

Linking one to the next, but sharing all in grief,

A common territory that the living inhabit, graveside. 

So shall we all be lowered down to common ground

With the slow creaking of the ropes that fix us now. 

Form & Substance

Spring buds on branches
Dance in the wind. Their shadows
Darken frosted grass. 

The sun wakes early.
A single drop of water 
Stands on a branch tip.

This is one haiku 
But it is three haikus too.
The drop has vanished.