A Dwindling Roots Rues Within a Song For Moments Gone and Seconds Past

Expiring trees reach to make peace

with the forgotten air they’ve left

behind

Breaths that could’ve been

Yours or

Mine

coating itself along our throats

and burying itself through our lungs

playing itself like notes

never left unstrung

leaving again through exhales

that come and

pass

tickling our ears like the sweet sounds

of brass

I’ll await these leaves to fall

branches to wilt

because I know this end brings inside you

A great sense of guilt

not doing what you were planted here to do

letting your gifted time

escape you

as you’ve slowly robbed mine

don’t worry

my anger is not towards you

or the lungs you failed to furnish

rather these moments that

I’ve let perish

slipping through open fingers filled with splinters

gracing summers because soon will come the winters

where the possibilities of climbing your arms

and sliding down your legs

will no longer be an option

I’ll have to leave you

watch you

feel you

as you slip back into the ground

that birthed you

that birthed us

returning to the memories of branches that

we

let

fall

through shapes of clouds that have blurred

now that our stems have grown tall

pressing the ground as we recover the broken

the forgotten

only to turn you

turn this

into ticks of an ignored clock

that never seems to stop