35: Tis of Thee

Great writer,

I will not dedicate your verse

to

my mind; I will forget

you, so I do not waste myself.

My hand on

the amputation, where

the axe and saw have taken

the partnered limb. I could not feel

the severed cambium, just

the splintered

rough surface of loss,

the rings of life apparent.

High, sun-startled, shaking in thin oxygen I took

off my shade because you

cannot wear it and see the eagle. There will be only crow.

Down there, they buy

our arrowheads, tomahawks, war and wedding

dress antiques - on the land they left us;

we still make them. They are new things.

There is no more trade,

only waste.

I hear a tall man sits

quietly in Washington,

stark white eternal, tied up alabaster. I hear

he is shy

around the corner, forever quiet -

like a damned statue -

the sky is so tall; it must hold everything in between. All is still

here. Nothing lost.

Never forgotten. We are in;

everything

sits in our eyes - stretched out as far as they have seen