on the last day, a tree’s left hand
inspired by mary oliver
offers itself,
like an uncoiled vein
no answer,
only response
to wave
from wave
— unfolding
like every last undifferentiated stem cell,
and turning its leaves from green to red,
deciduously
looking for something to become
what might one day be
a mitochondria.
glioblastoma.
Mr. Peanut.
a kayak. a morning.
the Guard of Gotham.
a bent road.
the eye of a fish.
a tree’s left hand. a piece of the moon.
a something.
and for now, each is a nothing,
millions are nothing,
and have always
been.
blank, inertia,
activation,
precise formation
of energy coiled into a waiting wire
spring of what will be.
what will fifty years in this body
tell
the forces that weave the tides together
again and again,
never tiring of their fellow day grabbers,
their day-draggers
and lullabies,
audibly breathing in and out,
snoring when the sun peeks away?
how do they sustain eternity together,
never bickering,
through hot flashes
and panned wings,
and all the dead
dead mustering at the bottom.
sometimes
I wonder
how the end begins.
a raspberry.
Covid on a plane.
boyhood.
the way dreams unfold —
ready for anyone,
looking.
so later on,
when someone scoops up your carbonitis
and nitrogen-packed membranes
in a puddle of silken steel soil,
and sings a song
you sang,
remember how single stem cell makes more material
destined only to rot,
how you are made world made new again,
epithelial elysium, epidermal ether,
and other things,
like a grasshopper that existed to eat sugar crystals on Portuguese frosting
and fit existence
in between two narrow lines.
and on the last day,
bless touching,
tumble from the shrubs
scrape the pale ground
seek what of love you have,
don’t
see what love
might have
done,
name the stars,
let them die,
cry,
remember to create,
watch more dreams,
see how they unfold,
slippery and grey,
like cold mist sprayed onto cheeks
and something else.
wonder
sometimes
how the end will begin.
and as always, it was
as it always was.