Go Out and Prune a Tree

When and why did what

come down to tell us

there’s a future and a past?

Was its intention to bedog us

ever after with the certainty

that we won’t last?

Why does it help to know

that we will die? There’s no

abstraction Death will mollify.

And then we’re told – by whom

or what? (could it be Death?) –

“Oh, quit your bitchin’.

Do something in the kitchen.

Go out and prune a tree.

Write poetry.”

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