The wind wearies the tree in the yard.
It’s stood there now for fifty years.
I remember laughing at it when you
Climbed catlike up its branches, yowling
At the nicks of thorns on your skin, your
Insistence that to no mere wood would you yield.
We separated for forty years, the yard
Grew wilder as ownership passed beyond
Crisscrossing squirrels to wide canyons
Of time, erosions of roots, a coyote
Dogging the old dogyard, beyowling
Now the rain and cold, the sun unyellowing,
And you are no longer here, but yonder
In the withered nests, bespattered yolks.
The tree wearies of the wind’s yawing.
