Fathoms

 

There will be days 

when 

 

no matter how wise or willing

your step

 

only a tree can contain 

the sky that would drown you,

vast in its blinding expanse,

swirling your grief

in its fathoms.

 

Look down.

Follow your ebb to its tree

feet, unmoving in the waving

grass,

where leaves rise like bubbles

or hands

opened, dropped from stripped branches

changed,

like you, 

by change.

 

You are safe here

in its rooted 

harbor, 

held in these tentacular arms,

each drawing you closer

as a swell curls within

so that you 

break

 

among kin,

pressed into 

new,

a joining

of what lifts

with bright depths

 

a sky that 

embraces

itself.