“I think that I shall never see...”

It was my father’s favorite poem and to know the swagger of my father, it might seem hard to believe he had one. He’d recite it to me when I was a little girl – very little – and to this day, despite my best intentions, it is the only poem I have memorized.  

“A poem as lovely as...”

I came from barren lands. I didn’t know what I grieved for. He said: Everyone has a landscape in their heart. I crossed the border and saw inside my chambers: Branches, leaves and bark.

He said, Losing a tree is like a gut punch. I couldn’t take it a down. Like cancer, it is claimed in little pieces. Some fall off, others are cut. It marks its own grave, eventually.  

“A tree.”

It speaks in a voice like wind: Age is beautiful and everything continues to grow. You might be relief or shelter; you might be treasured without even knowing it. To exist is a triumph. Every season passes. Don’t stop living. Not yet.

I was very little then, very young. My mother took me to an antique store with her and I found it there, my father’s poem, etched upon a plaque. I gave it to him. After my mother died, my father sold everything off. Except: In my stepmother’s house, I saw it. I had given him other gifts of course, even some made by hand. But that’s not what he kept.  

To have known my father, it might seem hard to believe he had a favorite poem. It might seem impossible to picture him reciting it. But I remember.  

Sometimes it is hard to know what one is grieving for. Other times, it’s easy.  

(Quotations excerpted from Trees by Joyce Kilmer)