Poems - “We All Fall Down” and “Wearied”

By Elizabeth Hereford

WE ALL FALL DOWN

 

 

The young oak trees along Winberie,

for some sublime reason, hold on to their dead

leaves through winter. Their dendrite

branches grip them with determination

as if they are grieving mothers who refuse

to bury children in the cold ground.

 

 

The phenomenon is called marcescence.

In the wind, the voluminous remnants

of dead brown leaves clap together

like children in Montessori circles,

sitting on rugs, singing along to rainsticks,

a sound of innocent, joyful childhood.

 

 

Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.

But the oak leaves don’t, and we don’t

know why. Mother Nature, full of mysteries.

Oaks symbolize longevity, eternity.

Even so, they must let go of the dead

in spring and welcome new beginnings.

 

 

When I became a teacher, my young,

easily mystified students collected

fallen leaves of various colors

and studied them. They tied them

to strings and created leaf mobiles

with sticks they’d gathered outdoors.

 

 

But, having taught about trees

all these years, I never noticed until now

how oak trees preserve the dead.

The leaves, born in the same season,

die together when nature intends

them to, but don’t fall off as they should.

 

 

Today, hearing them clap in the trees

makes me think of the great loss of

sixty-seven souls in the Potomac, of

mothers who must sorrowfully and

unwillingly bury their children, lost

too soon, into the cold, hard ground.

 

 

Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.

But it shouldn’t have been like this.

I hope it is a new beginning for them,

that some sublime, unknown mystery

awaits them, that the wind carries their spirits

to a final resting place of peace.

 

 

 

WEARIED

After James Merrill’s "The World and the Child"

 

Letting her virtue be the whole of love,
the mother tiptoed out, lingered. Quiet
fell on the child, who was awake and aware of

 

the shutter doors that don't quite close. Above,
a ceiling fan soothed the girl who was compliant,
letting her virtue be the whole of love.

 

Outside, a siren. She heard her mother move
back down the hall. The mother sighed. It
fell on the child, awake and aware of

 

grief. She shed some pillow tears, which proved
she understood and kept her knowing private.
She let her virtue be the whole of love

 

and lay below as neighbors stepped above. 

The smell of coffee (mother’s liquid diet)
fell on the child. Awake and aware of

 

the single mother’s burden, she would have
had all the world inside those walls, invited.
Letting her virtue be the whole of love,
she dreamt of a world she knew nothing of.