Poem of the Week | March 13, 2023

This week’s Poem of the Week is “A Partial Account of the Trees” by Christine Robbins.

Christine Robbins lives and works in Olympia, Washington. Her poems have appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, New England Review, Poetry Northwest, West Branch, and others. She was twice a finalist for the National Poetry Series.

 

A Partial Account of the Trees

When I write to you from here

Does it reach you where you / are –

In the field’s eternal / time in early evening?

 
A billion silver doors inside the air

Have / closed to me.

 
                                        Birch at your window

                                        Cedar where you died

 
Oden / hangs himself

In the Yggdrasil tree.

 
Oden, in his / agony

Sees beyond the roots

To the runes / underneath.

And he somehow grabs the stones,

And he / screaming

Saves himself.

 
                                        Ghost-maple by the door

                                        Cherry in the yard

 
There were no babies / born

Before you three.

How selfish of me.

 
You were the / only

Infants in the world.

 
No children

Calling from the hill before / you called.

 
                                        Ash at the window

                                        Pear tree by the road

 
These days –

It’s hard to rise or sleep.

 
I didn’t know that grief

Would settle on the / days,

At best like hunger’s

 
Pull to tend the body.

I didn’t know

You would continue / being dead

Relentlessly.

 
                                        Redwood on the hill

                                        Dogwood by the path

 
I can picture / your hands

Perfectly.

 
Your hands / so like your father’s hands.

Your writing / like his too.

 
In a dream the other night

We were riding in the car

And I sat / with you in back

 
And / sobbing / kissed your hands

Repeatedly.

 
                                        Chestnut at your grave

                                        Fir tree near the spring

 
Some people tell me grief

Will settle over / time

As all things do.

 
But I don’t even want

To move from where you are.

Being eaten by ants

Would also / not improve

The longer it went on.

 
                                        Plum tree past the yard

                                        Red maple by the rock

 
We have more herons

Than ever this / year.

They’re / raucous in the fir.

 
The clamor of the young

While they’re waiting to be fed

 
Is wild –

Like / resin castanets.

 
Come spring / what if I knew

You were looking / for a place to end your life?

 
Shock

Feeds you slowly,

Like birds.

 
                                        Apple near the house

                                        Cedar past your grave

 
On our last camping trip

We stopped along a cliff.

 
I was afraid to / watch you

Stand along the ramparts

Watch you / look over the edge.

 
I wanted you to

Sit back in the car.

I / should have known right then.

 
                                        Green maple by the path

                                        Sapling on the hill

 
I can hear the children / now.

They are calling from the hill,

And I / want them to survive.

 
When you were very small

You told me you / could hear

A silver sprite

And the trees when they screamed.

 
                                        Bay tree by the porch

                                        Quince along the street

 
When I first heard the word

Rune

I thought it meant ruin

 
I thought it meant

Altered by time.

But the word / means secret.

 
                                        Fern-maple at the stairs

                                        Holly by the hill

 
Oden could save

Anyone / from hanging.

He could save

Any person in a / tree.

 
He could arrange the runes

And the person would revive

And they could / walk & talk again.

 
                                        Yew-tree past the hill

                                        Hawthorn by the road

 
The last / glorious /morning /

I saw you / alive,

You said you / didn’t want

To hurt yourself / that day,

In / early spring.

 
And I think you answered me

 
Honestly.

What / if I had / asked

If you wanted to die?

 

Author’s Note

In April 2019, my youngest daughter, Wish, took her life at twenty-one. I’ve been disoriented by grief and time hasn’t moved in its usual way. But when I write to her, I feel like I can enter the space where the living and the dead can reach one another. I feel like she can hear me.