Integration

I wish I were close
To you as the wet skirt of
A salt girl to her body.
I think of you always.
                - Akahito c. 730 A.D.


My son leans into my side
as close as the elm growing into our home.

                His skinny arms push into my biceps,
                knead my muscles, stiffen my spine

as my feet root us to the ground.
Day after day, sun rise to moon rise,

                reading books, scratching out the alphabet,
                counting the stars on his bedroom ceiling,

always leaning, pushing near enough
to climb inside my bones and walk away.

                They say his senses are off, incomplete, awry.
                My son is a sapling, not suckling, but stretching.

I am the host, rough barked mother tree,
coarse, uneven, irregular. I think of him always.

We grow       together        apart            together
following the sun through dense green canopy,

until we part, weathered bark breaking to pieces.
The forest would have it no other way.