Tell me Not to Say Come Down

Do you remember Sunday mornings on the hill
and the strawberry sky waking summer

we sat in the crook of the tree
and listened
to the brook not a river
no
but to the ear

I am filling the places of the past
with light
from the open fire
where you cooked bacon on Sunday mornings
and our fragrance was part of the canyon then
with the hoop of our children climbing the rock walls

you would tell me not to say come down

there were some things you understood
from your own place that weeped

so many years you held them in
before you slung them back
and they hit me

I was just there for the slop over

Remember the apple turnovers

fragile even now was that one day darned
so I could pinch it open and take a bite of you
still warm

just before the change of season
it is right that I do so