Laura McCullough
DAMAGE & GRACE
Close by, a bridge restoration
progresses, workers coming & going,
cranes hauling steel over the stream
leading to the bay. I turn to my trees
in pots, secateur in one hand, root
splitter in the other. Responsibility
weighs heavily on me, roots hidden
below the surface need untangling.
My uncle, a steel man, got his leg
crushed between two unleashed girders
high above the City, probably drunk
or high himself. We rarely talk about it.
I could say, it was the times, but it’s always
been that time. The difference now:
less secrets, less shame; we try to prune
back the bullshit that keeps us from healing.
But it’s a job that never ends. That uncle
spent a lifetime trying to mend himself,
passing fragments of repair to a family
he had harmed.
A tree that falls
in the forest often
becomes fertile decay
out of which daughter trees rise.
Sometimes in Bonsai we call that a raft:
lay a trunk on its side,
score its belly so roots
spring from the plane;
If you’re lucky, shoots will reach for the sun.
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