So full is the world of sorrow
the grief of what is ending
the horror of what has begun.
So large is the scale of grief
that I cannot immerse myself in it more
than what comes at me in waves.
I grieve in small ways, symbolic
changes in life, to my own small life,
that strike me, move me to sorrow –
not as a young man, over the loss
of one who is lovely, but over loss
in the world, of life
in forms other than human.

Today, they came to cut down a tree
whose branches gave me comfort
its very largeness felt of strength
an endurable and lovely presence.
Here now it is cut and, tomorrow,
they will remove its last branches
though yesterday it was well and tall.

I watch, as rain falls,
nurturing the ground where, tomorrow,
the tree will give way
and something else will grow.
I will as well, rooted here, for now.

---

Portland, Oregon – May 31, 2018

I wrote of this tree in a poem I wrote called Deodar: https://incascadia.wordpress.com/2017/02/18/deodar/