He was a Redwood tree in California,
born and raised in Missouri and
chopped down Virginia.
His spirit was oaky strong
and wrought with the wisdom of ancient bark,
but dead four years shy of fifty.
That was my father.

But a tree fell today.
A tree whose roots were rocked to
their core with hit
after
hit.

He raged while I danced around
the trunk of the father I remembered.
Hoping, praying that maybe the impact of
little feet on soft ground could
rock a forest back into rhythms of strength.

Feet do not make roots grow deeper.
Feet tear roots up.


I found him curled up and crying in the closet.
I should’ve looked for him sooner.

So let me answer the riddle:
the answer is
yes.

When a tree falls in the forest,
and no one is around to hear it
I assure you

it makes a sound.

And when they ask me what my greatest regret was,
when I am older than he ever lived to live,
I will tell them that I was not
with him when he died.

I will tear into bottom lip
like roots tear dry ground
and tell them that I was
branch of his branch and
vine of his vine, but I do not know
what he wished to say to me
in the last moments this earth afforded him.