The Great Divorce

A parting glow that blackens trees

turns separate blades of grass to shadows,

different futures each,

which for an instant might have been—

or so it seemed.

The earth cannot spin back,

but what has been will be again—

but not, perhaps, for me.

Together we go walking through the woods

of pine and aspen, juniper and spruce

toward one great certainty of change:

to shaking off of mortal blood,

to sunlight on the other side of day.

Though what I lacked will not be counted,

though what I had did not suffice,

still what I gain will stand upon the earth.

Across the sky time stretches out,

an ancient tree with little sap,

a pitcher falling toward the ground,

a chord prepared to snap.

First published in As Surely as the Sun Literary, Issue 4, p. 14