I see our whole life together,
Looking back, like tracks in the snow

When the sun shines or the wind
Blows they’ll be covered, melt away
And disappear

What’s left only you and I will know
Just as what has been
No one else will ever understand 
that journey

Now something has died, but it’s
meant to be
The old skin is sloughed off
What remains is rough, hewn
like stone
Where the feeling is gone, the limb
has died
Someday the whole tree will fall
And pass away back into the earth

What of the many long gone summers?
The shade given by caressing arms
The leaves that rained in Fall
The bark that bristled and burst
bigger and stronger
So many creatures called the rugged
embrace of those limbs their home

The craggy root like an eagle’s claw 
At last releases it furious grip

Something remains forever, immutable, long-standing
It’s just that there is no simple vestige of which to frame
Or shrine in which to place it