It was perfect, in that moment
like a blue-sky fall afternoon
or the crisp morning after snowfall—
my child perfectly described its scent
with, “Yum!” (and my mind objected
we do not eat roses often, do we?)
But the next day, I looked and thought
it is now too big; the smell will be all
pale subtleties and gaudy petals
over saturated, powderless, common—
meaning beauty is time, as well as
form, function, and all the categories
I never learned.

We didn’t hear it—
one third of a tree, toppling
full-branched into the field.
Around noon, I snipped
a lot of little branches off,
making way for bigger cuts,
drenched in sweat. Men came
from the HOA; but
the trunk was on my land, so
they took their chainsaws
down into the woods, someplace.
That evening I set down my wine
and used a hand saw for a time
until the sweat came back;
we could pay someone, but my plan
is to buy my own chainsaw.
How else could I properly mourn
the little green-ceiling room I liked
out there in the yard, a place of
peace now very gone,
now getting snipped up,
or the tire swing I was proud of
hanging—as I consider
chopping down the rest
since, you know,
it’s quite close to the house.

The air is crisp, and speaks to me
of sunlight sparkling through the trees
a bright wine on the other side
of the sun, when I shall be older
and today’s new life will be
that season’s grandfather leaves
floating down to rustle among brothers
and sweep down the hills—
becoming soil, becoming life
soaking into root veins & reborn;
one year’s crisp cool evening calls to the next,
one orbit or one hundred beyond.

She is
the laughter in their sincere joy
the comfort to their childhood pains;
the hand that guides their crooked lines
the confidante and counselor;
she is their sense of beauty,
the definition for their words,
her sternness is their first morality,
her sorrow their first glimpse of death.
She is their simple sense of home
their peace in dark and flashing rain;
she is the garden they will recall,
once mighty oaks, to feel again
the splendor of an honest love
poured out on their unfurling forms.
And in the years before and all around
she is more than they will ever learn:
enduring, persevering, in moments
overwhelmed but steeling on;
for the happiness, the nurtured growth,
for the benefit of those she bore in pain:
she is, with a meaning forged in time 
that she can never fully grasp, beloved
in hearts that will endure beyond—
Mom.

Sometimes when I fail

I like to play back the film
backwards & see myself
rise to triumph from defeat
sprinting heels-first from tragedy.