You have to be able to imagine lives that aren’t yours.
—Wendell Berry
And so today I’m the cottonwood
in the yard, the one we planted twenty years ago,
the one my son used to climb,
the one that we hang bird feeders from, and pinatas,
the one that even now is losing its leaves,
and I imagine standing there year after year,
fall after fall, now after endless now.
What is now for a tree? How different
is now from infinity? I imagine being
my own soaring cathedral, my roots
always thirsting, my wood growing
to seal my wounds, my branches
always chasing the light.