The Bride Tree Lives Three Times by Brenda Hillman

The Bride Tree Lives Three Times

 

In willing textures where the wood rat lives

 the drought lets trees die twice.

 Realism & magic steady one another

  & the hurt in your heart

 from the human fact

circles the edge of the park. The bride

  tree blooms late this year, its nature

 stored at the edge of day—

 

 some like to avoid the word “nature”

but what to put in its place

 for ants & thoughts & parking meters,

stars & skin & granite, quarks,

  the world above & below . . .

When you are confused about poetry

& misunderstand its brown math,

  the sessile branches & a seal of awe

 

attach the tree to the dark.

  Someday, you’ll need less evidence;

the missing won’t cease to exist.

For now, you stop to eat the free fruit

 only you knew would appear

& for that you have your human hands,

  infinite nature, a single

 body standing on this earth—