Black Tree
By Pat Seman
The sea, the hollow booming sea and that cottage
we once rented with the window wide open
and the black tree against the dawn,
its long branches with joints like an old man’s knuckles
reaching in.
The wood creeping into life behind us, scarlet
rags and threads of mist caught
on the branches.
Who would have thought that beyond
lay such a spread of green, of fields
and hills and a river between steep banks winding
and turning back upon itself.
The sense that it will never end, this returning
to the same point.
Skull of a goat on the dirt path.
Even the poorest bone can sing, catch sighs
of the sea and the wind
through apertures bent and curved.
There are spaces between us; without touch,
without the slow, steady breathing of body against body,
joy must stay jarred and crystallised,
when so much is near and all around
for the picking; fruit like jewels
that hang from the old gnarled branches—death
reaching out his fingers,
the gift his fingers, an alphabet of sound.
Stones flash as he touches the piano keys.
Another Island by Bob Ward. Copyright 2014 by Bob Ward. All rights reserved.