Copper Beech
Why is the earth angry at heaven?
If there's a question, is there an answer?
On Dana Street, a copper beech.
Immense, like the tree of my childhood,
but with a violence I wasn't ready to see then.
I was a child like a pointed finger,
then an explosion of darkness;
my mother could do nothing with me.
Interesting, isn't it,
the language she used.
The copper beech rearing like an animal.
Frustration, rage, the terrible wounded pride
of rebuffed love - I remember
rising from the earth to heaven. I remember
I had two parents,
one harsh, one invisible. Poor
clouded father, who worked
only in gold and silver.