A Final Affection
by Paul Zimmer
I love the accomplishments of trees, How they try to restrain great storms And pacify the very worms that eat them. Even their deaths seem to be considered. I fear for trees, loving them so much. I am nervous about each scar on bark, Each leaf that browns. I want to Lie in their crotches and sigh, Whisper of sun and rains to come. Sometimes on summer evenings I step Out of my house to look at trees Propping darkness up to the silence. When I die I want to slant up Through those trunks so slowly I will see each rib of bark, each whorl; Up through the canopy, the subtle veins And lobes touching me with final affection; Then to hover above and look down One last time on the rich upliftings, The circle that loves the sun and moon, To see at last what held the darkness up.<u/><u/>
"A Final Affection" by Paul Zimmer, from Crossing to Sunlight. © University of Georgia Press, 2007.
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