Reading my poem, "There May Always Be the Trees" first published in Bloom.
There May Always Be the Trees
Night came in early— November and a first
dusting. A cold stone wall, our dog, woods
beyond the field all becoming a mystery
at dusk. The fear of unnecessary injury
and the winding down of the clock
preoccupied me, though we didn’t need
to be anywhere. I knew you were cold
but left you to your contentment, staring
into the space where the sun had fallen.
Our dog drifted into the shadows.
We could hear her light crashing
across the long grass of the fallow.
When headlights caught us, there
and gone, we walked back to the cabin
crunching across the gravel road.
I warmed the bisque, and you went out
to the darkness of the deck, overlooking
another forest patch, allowing us to imagine
ourselves in an idyll. I brought you
sherry and put my arm around your
shoulders. “There will always
be trees, won’t there?” you asked. “...there
may be,” I lied. Inside, our dog whined.
We returned to candlelight and fire.
Brendan McEntee 