i took a picture
of an apple blossom row
awhile back in a distant mid-may
the blossoms a congregation
in a certain pastoral cathedral
i thought i took it because
it was something of a beautiful thing
but i won't lie
it was because i spied you there
hanging in the green pews with me
i look at the picture now and again
and for awhile did not know for sure
why it was a haunt
why it was a prick of the
conscience
to see those cotton clusters
bunched in
languid faces-to-the-sun
repose
yet on the verge of some undefined calamity
until today
looking at the picture once more
with new eyes
that see
our collective shedding seems the end of so many
i know: friends, brothers, and brothers of
friends, those of my flesh
and of the flesh of you my blossom
companions
who don't bloom again
what something is it that makes
the trees brush us away
per annum
shedding us down
to that grassy path
to that soft place
our fall that gives way to
a momentous fruition
only to return again for many
but not for all?
i prefer to believe
that the disappearances
are not some cruel
luck of nature's lottery
but rather part of a design that
passes through
human comprehension
in a way that makes us
know
even if we don't
you are part of my row
you faces in my orchard
you tree-wept brilliant
beautiful congregants
my friends and flesh
we will fall
and rise again
blooming if not here then
in that somewhere else
beloved blossoms always, all
