Seán Haldane

Ontario 2010

There’s something not quite right about that tree –
The Memory Tree – those names looking down at me, swinging eerily.
The man who burned to death in his own house,
And the woman he had run off with from his tiresome spouse,
Then she died, and that’s why he… or so it’s said.
They’re not around, mind you, no buried dead.
But you shoulda seen that arrow, it went awry,
Haywire, ricocheting from tree trunks, with a god-awful dead twang
From the string. I thought it’d bust but the bow was OK,
Or maybe it was the arrow nock but no bits flew. I let loose another
At that albino mountain goat, but it missed. And another.
It missed too. At least I found them. That first one,
I must have searched for it half an hour, in the poison ivy,
Snapping branches, tripping on lumber trash,
I almost hung myself on a branch. Then I gave up,
Left my arrow as an offering for those dead.
They mayn’t be there, but they sure were inside my head.

I tell you, they spooked me. It took another target
Before I got my aim back: the standing brown bear,
Three arrows like buttons down his chest,
But I doubt they laid those ghosts to rest.
You guys know what they’re called, those flowers
That sprung up in the clearing just before you get to the moose,
Like waving mauve carnations? ‘Bouncing Bet’.
I’d rather have a Memory Clearing than a Memory Tree,
The dangling wooden names each with a story.
But live flowers are for life, not death, I guess.