Poem: A Lover's Recourse (thus)

tel / thus

Among the ways to take a good look at a tree,
the best is to lie down and look up at a tree.

I can no more hold you by naming qualities
than sacred names scratched out in bark possess the tree.

All that I touch of you are touches and not you.
A torn branch does not make the tree less of a tree.

Your life—your speed—moves independently of mine.
Looking elsewhere does not hasten or slow the tree.

Being is your glory, which no one can take from you,
unless they take you down, for burial, from the tree.

The demon of despair, the angel of desire,
the many leaves that flutter on an unmoving tree.

Jee, lay your anguish on the ground and look up.
The tree. The sky. The tree. The sky held by the tree.

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