Arbor Vitae

Arbor Vitae               

…and hell

you realize, resembles more

an average life,

half hidden,

never fully spoken

something you can grow used to.

                                    David Whyte

                                    When the Wind Flows

While I slept I dreamed

sometimes I remade

the day in my own face,

a trace that came

to me brand new it

came to me clean

with the lull of a song beneath

the lid of my lip, and in French

too because I loved it I loved

the way it sounded

the way it could soothe
(I never knew what it meant
until later)

while it plucked

one by one by one

the feathers and the top

and then the bottom

beak and then the eyes…

I slept the wrong

and the right side by side

and they would

fistfight and I never woke

that there wasn’t a clear

winner but I never woke

ever knowing who

it was.  I’d think

about them while I stood

at the end of the lane

waiting for the bus to come

and I watched the house

shrug us off

and I never

wanted to go back

into it after that or take

a friend into it not because

of shame everybody has that

but because it was there

that the fire was out 

and it was close

to Christmas

and the tree was missing

her best branches

cut off so she could fit

in the corner next

to the stove and too

some of her lights

would glow and some

of them would not

and while I slept

Jesus would be

born and I’d feel pity

for him in all that cold

and I’d want to take him

home to my bed

and maybe soup maybe

and a bit of bread but there wasn’t

soup and there wasn’t

bread

and all the hay had gone

to the dog and it wasn’t

enough her floor was still

bare and cold I know I slept

in there once with her

while the house was

shrugging with us in it

and listen don’t let anyone

tell you it’s not so bad

we just say things like that

so we can sleep

at night so we can leave

Jesus to the dogs

so we can

cut down trees and make them

flash for a month

or so until we tire of them

and shrug them off too

timing that shrug

with the closing

of the woodstove door

when the fire’s going

good and those sparks:

so generous so ravishing

to our dry dry tinder,

almost too close to it, fingers.