Red Trees

Red Trees

Red Trees

Impossible not to see them
once you cross the railway bridge
and enter Memorial Avenue—
the rows of red trees
along the cemetery’s perimeter:

maples, claret ash, liquid ambers—
cotoneasters where rosellas
hang upside-down and feast
on berries like clots of blood.

The breath of next month’s winter
hangs over them already
but they seem intent on proving
that winter is a lie—
that neither winds nor frosts
are permanent afflictions
and disappear as quickly as they arrive.

A family that I once boarded with
at Jeogla lies buried
beside these trees—mother, father,
son, grandmother:
all “born and bred” in New England
where I came to work
and left when the work was done—
where I once considered
settling down but didn’t
for reasons I still can’t explain.

The mother dead at ninety-three years of age,
the father at seventy;
grandmother at eighty-five
and the son at twenty-four.
On his headstone
it reads, “Accidentally killed
16th February 1972.”
All of them buried
In Loving Memory Of.
What can I do but pray ?
Or be content to live on the memory of a single day
when we sat down and ate a meal together ?

The wind pauses
and brings a moment’s peace—
but still leaves my questions unanswered
hanging from the branches of red trees.

Leaving a ground strewn
with decaying leaves
I leave Memorial Avenue
and walk back towards the railway bridge.