The Names of Trees

The Names of Trees

Smoke curled skyward as trees forgot their names,
oak leaf and maple leaf first desiccated,
robbed of moisture, and then incinerated
in a no-disco inferno, they curled and fell.

They forgot their names, just as my father
on his invalid bed, forgot my name, and then
his own before the coma took him
to fly like an eagle, as promised by Isaiah.

This morning the sun burned through
the cellophane red maple leaves behind the house.
Thin as my elderly father’s skin, they gave the light
an appearance of Christmastide.

Pop lived at my house for a few years. I took him to an adult daycare center each weekday so that I could continue to work.  That gets into a prose story that I may post later.

I took the photo at Adams Lake in Adams County, Ohio, with 35mm monochrome film. I later had it digitized.