Two Poems

TREE LIFE

Trees amaze me most in winter when

stark against slate skies

slim, long branches bend.  In December

snow somehow gently clings.

Pagans danced around oaks, in awe.

Trees were holy things.

Squirrels hurry as sparrows startle

through large, breathing limbs,

squeaking speckled, noisy hymns.

Pale, crisp leaves lay soft nearby,

in winter when trees amaze me most.

AFTERLIFE

People do odd things

after the death of a parent –

lose their faith,

end a marriage,

travel somewhere

they read of long ago,

as if, as if…

the faces they owned

before they saw

the things no one tells,

would somehow return,

certain and vaguely young.

The last time I saw my mother

she winked at me when encouraged

to attend a sing-along.

I understood that wink to mean

there wasn’t much to sing about

stationed by the large window

in a locked wheelchair so the nursing

home staff could move freely.

That window waits for me.

It does no one good

to cry in the dark,

“I was wrong.”  You need

to go on in the way

almost sleeping children

pull bedcovers and sigh

into the breadth of night.


from First Kiss by Barbara Alfaro

 © Barbara Alfaro

“Afterlife” first appeared in The Chesapeake Reader.