When I was twenty
I climbed to the shoulder
     Of my sacred grove
And cried
Because of lust
Because the Universe had none
     For me
Because I had gone to a movie
Because Edie and Eric sparked
     Romance and heat in the dark
     Besides me.
The buried, people-needing part of me
Zombied from the soil of that dark
And swallowed me.
I wanted, raw and hungry,
The love I had denied me,
And so I cried
     On the southern shoulder
     Of that old grove of pine.
I begged the trees for love
Seeking magic and solace.

I went there with my first lover,
But she did not understand
The magic of these old friends,
The trees atop that hill.

But they heard me in their
     Patient way
And, slow,
Grew me a lover who would understand
Drew me a lover from across the sea
Threw we a lover embedded in magic.

When we were to be married
A strange thing happened.
I went with five of my friends
To visit that grove,
But the grove, with warders
Of poison oak and
Slippery leaves on steep inclines,
Would not let them in.
And so I went in alone
To gather the dirt
Which we would blend
With the dirt of my lover’s hometown
In China.

And yesterday I brought her there,
Made amazing love to her there,
Feasted on each other
     And with each other
          There.

And at the end
I hugged the each and every tree
A thank-you for wishes granted
Simple affection for these
     My sacred grove.