By Larsen Bowker

 

I’d always assumed we all get some small bit

of wisdom before we die, believing it came

 

from some centrifugal force of the mind, but at

nearly eighty and no sign of any, I was scaling

 

back on this gentle hubris, until I heard some

in a friend’s voice as we talked about a ritual

 

Valentine dinner with our wives . . . words swift

as a swallow’s flight through the air at dusk,

 

and slow as the pyramid’s shadow, guiding me

toward that place where the singing comes from,

 

where memory grows on the Black Walnut tree he

brought from his and planted in my backyard half

 

a lifetime ago. I no longer own that backyard, but

the tree still sings the lime green lyrics of spring,

 

the dark green song of summer, and yellow and

gold arias of autumn—incorruptible witness to our

 

endless search for renewal of that thing we can

never name, but for which we search all our lives.