On this Morning in May
by Jeff Burt
In the abandoned orchard where we’d played,
after the storm of cancer broke him,
lightning threatened but no thunder called.
I threw a stone to wound the sky, a feral hurl
of arc and drop. Leaves fell and leaves falling
were songs of anger my hand had sung.
Wind rose as anger fell,
drawn in my chest like rain by the field.
I closed my eyes and breath I held.
Pulse beat double, blood in a rapids
formed by sorrow’s riprap, heart a kettledrum
and the death of my friend a pair of quickened sticks.
Rain did not fall, and yet,
when I opened my eyes, wet was the orchard.
I yearned to yield to the wide vernal air,
yearned to sit in the apple trees
in bloom, the happy folios of greening hills
alive with excess, but I had not come to stay.
I left the orchard on this morning in May
and left behind the life which was
and began over as someone new,
eyes peering, heart beating,
rivers running for two. Death had not divided,
but joined. So, I walked in the rain
and pressed the palm wounded by stone,
then, to remember, twice.
after the storm of cancer broke him,
lightning threatened but no thunder called.
I threw a stone to wound the sky, a feral hurl
of arc and drop. Leaves fell and leaves falling
were songs of anger my hand had sung.
Wind rose as anger fell,
drawn in my chest like rain by the field.
I closed my eyes and breath I held.
Pulse beat double, blood in a rapids
formed by sorrow’s riprap, heart a kettledrum
and the death of my friend a pair of quickened sticks.
Rain did not fall, and yet,
when I opened my eyes, wet was the orchard.
I yearned to yield to the wide vernal air,
yearned to sit in the apple trees
in bloom, the happy folios of greening hills
alive with excess, but I had not come to stay.
I left the orchard on this morning in May
and left behind the life which was
and began over as someone new,
eyes peering, heart beating,
rivers running for two. Death had not divided,
but joined. So, I walked in the rain
and pressed the palm wounded by stone,
then, to remember, twice.
Jeff Burt lives in Santa Cruz County, California. He has contributed to Williwaw Journal, Willows Wept Review, Rabid Oak, and Cold Mountain Review.