This is the place I lost all
hope. This stump was once
well, that’s obvious.

Its’ lot was empty except
for the leaves that dove into
a pool of green

at its’ feet. Each day I whisked by
my tree framed in the bus
window the only life

on Chicago Ave. I looked forward
to this glimpse, clung to it
like a free climber

defying gravity. They cut it
down without ceremony
I flat lined, sick with parking

lots. I wept on the way
to work humiliated, engulfed
by the dead who never saw

my tree, never mourned.
I rationalized they must need
to build, passage or

progress, small consolation.
But none came, it was
senseless, a violation.

Faith buckled and pocked
a city street,unfunded.
I got out

of the bus in May.
I walked to the grave.
The circumference,

bones of a galaxy picked clean
reduced to one dimension.
The years, the rings

sang like the lip
of a wineglass under my hand
caught on one sprout

regeneration. It was the whole
of the world, a forest, a vision
under one leaf

I built a life.

Chicago Il. April rd 2013 Day 3 Napowrimo

© 2013 Abby Smith, Writer