Le Hinton, Roots of Gratitude

How did this thankfulness

become a loss — a hopeful acorn falling

through the night sky? Just tell your long-dead

mother that you always told the truth

on Sundays but never any other day.

But that’s a lie, too.

When you pinch the cheeks of your curly-headed

nephew, the caramel-skinned, one-year-old,

whisper to him that he needs to have his diaper

changed just like you. We don’t stay potty trained forever.

Tell the family ghosts, just the lonely ones,

there isn’t anything new on the topside of this dirt.

The leaves mirror the roots. The roots envy the leaves.

I’ve confessed to more than one tree.

How like my mother to sit under this birch

and look down. How like my grandson

to rise and peel the bark.

How human of me to wish for more.