Yesterday, the sky in mute
horizontal swaths, air
almost too thick to breathe.
We found the stump of an old oak, man
sized, burning without flame
at the edge of a clearing-splintered wood
raw, bulldozed roots exposed
even the black ants fled
in the stink of old grief
made public and final, old hopes exposed
past tense!—now headless leafless a stump
knocked half out of the earth
and the soul just blue smoke vague
and slow-spreading rising without grace
into an indifferent sky no one will paint,
or photograph, or see
except us: yesterday.
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