The Yielding of the Narra Tree and the Fact That You Never Pursued

(to you, who never gets to read any of the numerous poems which are supposedly for you, but who instantly left)

Been listening to the cacophony

of the mechanical saw that

sadly, defeated the narra tree

that have seen many summer days,

defying its scorching heat

with its minute yellow blooms

that often replace the duty of the wilting grass

to give color and life to the embracing earth

at the front side of our yard.

The sound which bores itself

into my ears, moving inwardly,

drilling into my brain,

threatening to shatter it,

is in fact,

a blessing.

For this day which is meant

to be spent lamenting over

the fact that you came

and left as a shadow

(which I just realized the other day)----

that when you found out that

you're not yet about to lose yourself into the intoxicating smell

of the opium that is my emotion (and yours as well)

but to first, break an ivory tower,

cross a bridge, ride the roaring waves,

crash among the stars, you left------

was spent instead to bear the galling sound

of the saw machine, and distracted

me from tending and nursing

my bruised pride

(good, if it's just really in fact my bruised pride).

So along with the yielding of the

narra tree to the traitorous claws of

the saw which bruised and ripped not

only the fibers of its trunk,

but its quiet dignity and almost a decade of history,

I am quietly rejoicing,

for I was spared from yielding

to the pains of the claws of your retreat

which actually bruised and ripped out

the quiet dignity of my apparently,

unrequited emotions (for you) and

more than a decade of our assumed history.