Maple moored by moonlit midnight
Make me move more mindfully
Down the detour, dodging darkness
Damning doom, decidedly

I see eyes in layered branches
High in my periphery
Shifting as the crosswinds hurry
Always catching up with me

Could a masterpiece like this
Be cut down to make magazines?
Stripped and chipped, washed and bleached
And pumped onto a moving screen?

Does the maple know the paper
Far beyond its former form?
More-so made by non-tree things
Who am I to say the tree is gone?

Does a tear long for the ocean,
Or relish in sweet separateness?
Do we trust in what's left over
When making sense of impermanence?
Is presence only present tense
Or does a memory really bring me back to you?

Did the parts of you that faded
Carry through another way?
Where does light go when it leaves us?
Is that you here in her face?

I will guide her way with patience
But where's the tree that carried me?
Gone in touch, trapped in stillness
Here in thought infinitely.

Sickness was my little sister
When she too grew patiently
Cradled in your warm embrace
And cut out quickly, just like me

Does the cinder know the ember
Far beyond its former form?
More-so made by non-flame things
Who am I to say the ember's gone?

Does a tear long for the ocean,
Or relish in sweet separateness?
Should we trust in what's left over
When making sense of impermanence?
Is presence only present tense
Or does a memory really bring me back to you?"