by Jane E. McCafferty

Tree shadows —
sometimes they’re everywhere in the city —
On the white sun–struck wall of Home Depot
three of them shivered like they knew
I was falling for them.
The littler one might have broken into something
like a tree dance had I more time
more vision.

They were ordinary trees but of course
there is no such thing — the way they can’t help
reaching — so unlike us. The way
they seemed happy in their resignation —
their form so dependent on slow growth.
It’s hard to say anything new about trees
no matter how much you honor them.

I like those pictures of old women living
in tree–houses, their wild hair hanging down.
I always listen hard when people say old women
should cut their hair, and wonder why.
I remember my mother saying so and so
is too old for all that hair. Back then too old
was forty, fifty at the most.

i can’t say I’m strong and looking forward
to being old. I can say being almost old
is where I’d like to stay. Here on this cliff,
not yet a stranger in the mirror, most days,
but with an orchestra of aches and pains
to ignore every morning. Am I saying aging
is a kind of music and expecting you
to believe it?

I can’t remember the last tree I climbed.
I was probably a long–haired child hanging
upside down, lapping up the sky and yelling
Hey You! to passersby, not caring that my shirt
was probably up around my head. That may
be the definition of being truly young.
Don’t think I’ll be doing that again.
Unless I turn into one of those wild bird–women
you see out there on their own —
complete, un–caged. It’s hard for me to tell
what they’re really feeling. One day
soon I’ll have to ask.

by Andrew Vogel

We’ve all seen her, up on toe–tips,

passing easy–of–step across the way,

quicker than you’d think,

mumbling maybe —

jars,

knives,

hammer and nails,

stones and eggs,

recipes and ingredients,

timetables and chronicles,

the formula at the heart of everything

and one wish for all the world

— we should all stagger to imagine
what she must be juggling in her head
street by street each day of the year.

by Andrew Vogel

Crude chopped onions, celery, carrot,
scattered on the board before her.

He is listening earnestly;
he’s learned to do that.

How many times had she tried
to explain it, but again

the old incoherence.
I’m sorry, Aoine confesses.

You haven’t done anything.

Ceasing to chop, she turns
on him, knife in hand,

snatches the mug he holds
between them, slams knife

and mug on the counter,
turns blunt into the embrace,

plunges her hands in the well of his back,
presses her ear to breast bone.

She rattles like a plastic kite caught
in a gnarl of winter tree, harrowed

night and day by swiveling winds.

They have no word for this rite,

never had, and she could not change
a single thing about it, only she wants

to say it, to have it said, to give him
some sound to hold around her, beyond

the sense, so she could let free
and drift with him to ground.

by normal

maybe i should be an old man
sitting on a mountain top
with pure clean wind painting
my body with new spring hope.
maybe, it will never be that way;
i will remain dug in, here
at eyes–view, watching
the world peel itself down
with hurricane & virus
with separation & lies.
i would teach how futile this
endgame is, but
who would listen?
time runs short —
the inscriptions for tomorrow
are growing secure, they
remain dappled in prattle &
blather among the stars
in the gossip of the galaxies
in the throat of time.

— by normal, on his 77th birthday