In The Land Of the Living

 

In the land of the living

there are orchards in full bloom.

Ripe fruit heavy like rain, like Possibility,

hangs from the branches

and makes the air around it

feel heavy with the scent

of cherry, plum, and i-can, and maybe-i-could.

I watch from the hilltop

that rises to meet the foot

of my bed.

I peer across the empty white

sheets

of my dreams

and steal a memory of light, of color.

In the morning there's a little boy there,

he looks just like you.

Every dawn he climbs the tree.

I can tell by the way he pauses

to recollect himself

along the way

that he is even proud

of the scratches,

the scrapes and the bruises,

for as he ascends,

his limbs begin to mirror

the patterns of the tree bark.

He doesn't seem to want to Wait

for Fallen fruit

and I think this is why

I admire him, study him so carefully,

remember him so deeply.

He doesn't even want the fruit that's ripe.

He climbs

to the fragilest extensions

of the tree's limbs;

those sketch like branches

stretching out as if the tree itself

is tiptoeing

ever so slightly

through time,

Waiting

to touch the sky.

Every morning at dawn my boy

he goes to the most farfetched edges

of that precarious terrain,

to carress

the newborn

buds.

Watching him it's as if

you would think

it was he himself

in another day and time who

planted the seed which grew

to resemble that bud

which grew to resemble

that tree

which grew to resemble

he.

I wonder if the bud

would survive

without his care,

without his simply

being there,

I wonder if the other living people

living in the land of the living

realize

it's he who feeds them.

I've never seen him eat.

It's as if

he wouldn't dare

to chew 

his dream.

It's as if

there's something else

that feeds him-

I think

he feeds upon

the Climb.

Just like that cherry tree,

he eats the Sky.