Juniper, Vital

Juniper, Vital, Though Never Immortal (For Norman, who dug Grandmother’s grave)
The scent of this autumn’s juniper is without bottom,
but your death, compeer, is final.
Now the long cold retreat.
To sleep the caged gorilla , the snarling dog,
the rosy child, trillium.

This low raft of hills we call life
embraces only the things rounded:
sage tents, tufts, pines camelled green,
these ancient river stones at my feet.
You, my votary, my sweet wound, have been made square,
made to disappear.

Think of our common dream,
the twenties jazz become metabolic,
babes grown to full dress.
Lever to gear to fuel to beast to pastry.
Come and go, then, go.

Every hole is any eye on something we never saw before,
every moment a contradiction,
every name a little sad.
And the place where we part?
This is where we should choose to begin,
and to begin, we dig.

--Mitchell Hegman