Moments of Vision: Logs on the Hearth

A MEMORY OF A SISTER

   The fire advances along the log
      Of the tree we felled,
Which bloomed and bore striped apples by the peck
   Till its last hour of bearing knelled.
   The fork that first my hand would reach
      And then my foot
In climbings upward inch by inch, lies now
   Sawn, sapless, darkening with soot.
   Where the bark chars is where, one year,
      It was pruned, and bled -
Then overgrew the wound.  But now, at last,
   Its growings all have stagnated.
   My fellow-climber rises dim
      From her chilly grave -
Just as she was, her foot near mine on the bending limb,
   Laughing, her young brown hand awave.

December 1915.


									

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