where the continent divides

It strains my eyes to see
if this is the place where things come to begin
or to end.

Where there’s nothing between me and sky except sky
the trees cease to be, or are barely trees at all.

Those I can see are below my gaze,
bravely standing sentry, daring

each other to reach just that much higher.
Wind-swept and battered, barebacked,

arms open to the sun and the sky
until, at last, I spot what is
the last one.

There are no rivers here, yet they whisper
below the surface. In this place bides their mother

and as she weeps, they sing.
Her tears a seemingly endless

tonic of love and sacrifice that only a mother can shed.
They taste of hope and joy, pride and sadness.

Charged with the love of what is to come
and haunted by the melancholy that what will come
will end.


eph, 6/23/2006