Live Oak

to Louie Skipper

Here on the coast there are no proper seasons
still spring is able to surprise me
the live oak never loses all its leaves
but darkens in winter to a shadowed green
then raises unexpectedly in April
bright soft growth to the low clouds

In spring I look to the sad past with hope
knowing nothing yet has ended
certainly not the dead

You were going to be famous
that pointless dream of the young
that glare which spoils the approach to itself
then once attained burns away to ashes
leaving its light only in the past
while the traveller moves on

You were going to be famous
but I’ve been reading this anthology
the year’s best poems and you aren’t here
does this mean you are not a poet?

Perhaps five times in fifteen years
I have noticed on my shelves your thin gray book
and taken it down remembering something fine

When I close this book of one year’s best
the poems will disappear like leaves
this work of yours remains and returns
like breath like the tree like the one season