Paul's Tree

This morning the sun scattered gold
bricks across my kitchen floor. Now,
as we walk to the high school,
the wind spreads five degree burns across

my face. Nothing stirs but Zoe beside
me. She sniffs and pulls and does back-
scratching revolutions on the snow's crust.

Mournful clangs from the flagless
pole keep time as we near Paul's tree,
grown tall now - a twenty-something
tree to memorialize a would-be-thirty-

something man. Its limbs have
matured into a generous burst
of symmetry, bare and stretching
in every direction from the rock-hard

snow pushed high against its trunk.
A bright speck arrests my gaze,
raised in awe at the incomparable
blue above. A ribbon, frayed and bled

to rust dances on a sprig of holly.
Then I see her, fierce in her solitude.
She's reaching up (or maybe it was long
ago and the reach is level) to tie it on,

the rough branch tearing
at her winter skin, red tears
in the snow.

Johanna Donovan