The birch tree tapping on the window is death

The birch tree tapping on the window is death

(Re-read the line above, then skip this line and continue)

The greatest love

The deepest love

(Now pause)

I wrote a story about a boy dying who heard in the breeze-blown fingers of the solitary birch the completeness of his existence, in the moment of his sadness so completely infused with acceptance, no, with embrace she speaks to him,

As she always does for she is where he is for she is life

And I heard her wooden fingers on the wall next to my bed, not beckoning but soothing, as

We parted from each other

Then my father came in and shut the window

And I was a boy in a bed who had school in the morning

Carrying you with him

Alone

In this place where we used to be

But never were

Because I am here

And you told me you could not be with me any longer, not

Like that

But like this

I wrote a story about a boy dying in his bed and

When he died

He woke up here

We die in this life every day

We die in this life every day

The birch tree tapping on the window in a gentle summer wind, in the

Arctic wind

I wake up here

Still writing the story of the boy who

Lay in his bed wondering why you had to leave

And why I had to stay

And hearing your voice, always the more sensible

Whichever of us stays is you

Your tears

The cry of

The one who left when the boy in the bed died

To become the boy in the story

Who still hears the tapping of the birch tree

Inside his heart

Reaching across the branches

Down the trunk

Into the ground

And through all life

To you.