Young Beech Trees

April’s tattered sky, storm-purple

Rain-blue

Yellowed scudding grey in hue,

Folds itself sullen-faced

Over the mountain’s muddy stream beds,

Illumines grudgingly a

Scatter-tatter of young beech trees.

 

The leaves are see-through thin now, still

Holding Autumn’s remembered ease,

Still vaguely coppery, recalling

Riches long dissipated.

A wealth of well-being long since spent.

 

I keen and mourn in the kitchen’s cold light

In the morning, out of sight of

Any who could possibly guess,

What I dare not confess aloud:

I wish it had not been he who died that day.

I wish it had been some other,

Someone else.

I, who preach acceptance as the highest wisdom of our Age,

Have not accepted,

In all these years, his passing.

 

I still fiercely wish for the death of another, if he could then be here.

 

And I, sullen, stormy, grey

Cling like those spent beech leaves,

Thin as old regrets, pale as tired wanting.

 

Is it possible that I, like them,

Can green and grow and love again?