Fallen
by David Adès


How sad it is that they have cut down
the she-oaks that stood in a line
to the east of my father’s grave —

solemn as an honor guard —
conducting their whispered conversations
with each other, with the wind,

the tall slender she-oaks
that comforted me in my grief,
attentive and grave at the grave.

I imagined their tops swaying on windy days,
framing an edge of the plot of sky
the dead gaze upon with their sightless,

eternal gaze. Now the wind has no one
to talk with and talks only to itself,
whispers and whistles on its way elsewhere,

and the graves lie untended
in the voiceless night.
How sad it is that they have cut down

the she-oaks that stood in a line
to the east of my father’s grave,
solemn as an honor guard.






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