A lattice work
Of pale green
New leaves
Just beginning
Their annual opening
It hangs before
A tapestry of deepest
Blue sky
Dappled
With small
White clouds
Slowly sifting
Across its vast
Expanse
Above the rangelands
Ripe and rich
And you feel
That the sun
And all of this
Can lessen
The pains
The losses
The clutter and mess
Lying close to the
Core
An attic
Strewn with yesterdays
Leavings
And tomorrows
Remembrances
All the lessons
We should have learned
Long ago
Like the impermanence of it all
Everything temporarily
In its place
Destined to disappear
These fragile things
Linger
Like what comes after
A blow to the shin
Its memory
Crawls along
The nape of
Your neck
Prickling the fine
Hairs
Until you shiver
Alone in the dark
Calling out
In your mind
To no one
In particular
Hating them all enough
Until they love you
And when they turn you out
To trod upon
The dusty bones of the world
Found only
In those high places
Where the air is thin
And horned sheep
With full curls
Batter each other
In crushing echoes;
None will admit defeat
Because to do so
Would be to confirm
The reality of it all.
When we bury friends
In the sunlit spring
It takes away
A piece of us;
We feel less than
What we were
Yesterday,
Laughing at the ways
Of the world
And our brief place in it.
Erik Hansen April, 2012
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