poem a day #5

THINNING

You are on a balcony, you say
over the phone, and it has been almost a year
since I have heard your voice so
its cadence, the path it used to frequent is over-
grown with bramble and brier and
is snagged and tugged out of shape.
I wish

I could say I had kept it clear. That,
in remembering, it could dance, freely,
down. But that gardening demands
four hands and have only two, too
few. Again, and it is easier: Such
are the fruits of my labor,
such is the mercy of time, of pruning:

How the heading-back shapes the bush.