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.
