This might be the old cottonwood’s last

fall if we can’t get some more water to it my dad said

and the urgency is there and so is the likelihood of

failure and so are the other priorities of greater concern

than the great half-alive tree and how could it be that this earth

will grow you and then let you die or that an irrigation ditch is abandoned

and rainwater whimpers and what once was the right location

for a giant cottonwood now is not and even so the gold leaves mix loudly

with the graydead branches and those black birds I don’t know

what kind (probably crows though I hate to say it)

and I want so much to

live even when I know what I’ve lost o cottonwood,

teach us how to die now so we do not have to wait until our final death

to learn to live I say mumbling some version of an old prayer I’ve held

about how sleep is a little death and so is surrender and

even with all that water it may die and

even with all that water it may live.