For Nicholas

He makes pots. Those things that hold things that are  transformed by fire encased in glass - the glass of the earth dripping with iron oxides and copper in the shapes of plants and animals in the shapes of animal bodies - pots like bellies - bellies that hold things - like mountains with birds on top of them. Birds that fly up to Mount Wantastiquet and fly back down and up again to our oak trees till they come together in a murder of crows singing and talking together like in Rumi - they have found god. And until we die it will be the same because even if we think it is not true it is true that we will die.

 
I myself I cannot conceive of it but I do conceive of it every day I conceive of it. I know that it will happen, that it is happening - now I ache because my bones are tired - like old horses. They have taken me this far every step I have ever taken my feet have taken me and I am grateful to them - they keep my balance. My balance keeps me. l am a swinger of birches too. I love birches. I used to walk in the cemetery after school - from Buckingham Junior high school - alone. I loved that cemetery where I would go and there would be the birches growing around the little stone lambs of the Greek children all buried in one spot - some of the stones had pictures of the parents on them - not like the Puritan stones with the willows weeping like my people - oh my people - so afraid to weep the the way you are not supposed to be afraid to weep. Oh Nicolas I wish for you birch trees to swing upon and know the space that surrounds you and the ground below you and the graceful grounding that you have become - above you - may you bound back from whatever pain has crossed your eyes and see more clearly to the dazzling light. Oh my Nicolas I wish that you may weep for the loss of your country and for all that needs to be wept for.  The animals the plants the people and the earth.