Poem: Groves

Image courtesy of Shawn Dulaney

Groves

This is the year you are alive in.
Before, you can't know the plagues

that ravaged the villages, the city
before the great fire, the green land

before the grey city. These are
the times you have already seen,

your joy, your faltering, the year
that changed you. Your life is a

ruler, but all you have of it is your
one end. It uncovers itself to you

one inch at a time, a tree worming
out from its roots, the ground,

thickening. This is what your name
sounds like in the voices of those

you've loved. Here is your view
in the morning, your mind gathering

the day before it is here, a great
down comforter, voluminous. Here,

a corner, what you had perceived as
the center, the heart acreage. This is

the body you belong to right now,
and these are the bones you have

always had. You have made peace
with the knowledge you can't take

it with you, but you want to hold
it for as long as you can, at least.