I wanted to sit long enough
to see the trees grow.
To keep one branch in sight
through all the days
when nothing seemed to happen.
No season folded into a second.
No years removed
to make the change apparent.
The whole slow business:
a twig thickening,
the shade reaching farther into the grass.
And nothing required of me
but to be there.
The unfinished things could stay unfinished.
For once, the hours would have
somewhere to go
without my carrying them.
I would stay for the first dead limb,
the opening it left,
the small tree underneath
beginning to receive the light.
But there would be mornings
when someone almost called me.
There would be a last invitation
neither of us knew was the last.
In a room somewhere,
people would be clearing a table
I might have sat around.
Still, I would be watching.
The branch would thicken.
The young tree would enter the space
I had learned to think of as sky.
And on this side of the railing
another life would be taking
its whole allotted time,
with no one keeping an eye on it.
At last I would look down
at my hands.
I would remember setting them there
when they were young.