WEBVTT

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Right outside my house, there is
a tree called the mountain ash

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tree.

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And it has white
flowers in the spring,

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and then it develops
orange berries in the fall.

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And if the Robins and
the cedar waxwings

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don't eat all the orange
berries, they'll harden

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and they'll stay on
through most of the winter.

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It's a very beautiful sight to
see them when the landscape is

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a landscape of snow.

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And those orange
berries on a sunny day

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stand out very brightly
in contrast to the snow.

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This next poem is called
"The Mountain Ash Tree,"

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and it's simply a
meditation on this image.

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The mountain ash tree.

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It is silent January.

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But on the ash tree, the orange
berries are still hanging.

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Who decided this?

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There is no purpose in it.

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Though I can imagine each
to be a globe of blood,

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a soldier's epitaph, or
a sparrows, or your own.

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What is the point?

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That we live to
die and die to be

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remembered for some purpose
in a globe of blood?

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I have no purpose,
though here I am.

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Remembering you,
remembering the ash tree,

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while it is there outside
and down the hill.

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The winter sun is still a
great light in the heavens.

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It says to me, "Behold
the orange berries, which

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I recall to do".

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It says, "See,
they are not alive,

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though there they are to
console or to bring back sorrow

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as you so choose".

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I try.

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I say to myself.

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As the sun speaks, many
beasts, and men, and worlds

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have died in its sight.

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That soldier there
is not your son.

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You are not the sparrows' wife.

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But sorrow returns,
there is no escaping it.

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The sorrows of other
men almost your own.

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The sorrows of small birds,
and the beasts of the field.

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I shall remake the world.

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I shall cleanse the waters.

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The sun says, "Let it be so".

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"I shall make pure the
air, that, too, is good,"

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says the Sun.

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"City shall be gardens and
only natural death shall live.

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I approve that, best
of all," the sun says.

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And the ash shall flourish,
and the sparrow breed.

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And the soldier shall lie
down holes in his own bed.

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But that does not console.

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It cannot be.

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I must, without
purpose, without hope,

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find something to hold to as
I hold to you and you to me

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while we go down.

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I open the door on sunlight.

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I walk in the field through
the snow down to the ash tree.

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I put a berry in my mouth.

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I bite it.

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It is hard, and bitter,
and without purpose.

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And I stand there, your
image white in my eyes

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saying to the sun,
"I am still alive".

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