THE CONSOLATION OF TREES
with much taken away … it is a small mercy
dementia patients have trees … their remaining
presence ceaselessly focusing the horizon
a horizon offering nothing that isn’t
in the present tense but with much
already lost maybe it is luck to have trees
opulent … flooding the sky
in dementia the mind is held in thrall
to trees … the late summer soothing
movement the wind makes of them
that hypnotic amazement and with much already
stolen already forgotten there is the consolation
of trees filling the mind … the sky ceaselessly
remade into a gift
Author’s Bio
Su Croll has published Worlda Mirth and Blood Mother, and has written a novel, Image Hungry, which is currently seeking publication. “the consolation of trees” is from Someday, a recently completed collection of commemorative poems for her father, a selection of which was longlisted for the 2015 CBC Poetry Prize.