Mulberry Tree Walk

The mulberry tree    
Is in full glory    
Of cast off children    
Lying in the road,    
Playing in the traffic,    
Black smashed splotches of sugars, seeds,    
Which we loved so well    
Scant years ago.    
     
Remember?    
     
The corn, too, finally with enough    
Rain to conjure up    
Those splayed leaves    
That tremble in Indiana heat    
And flip, flash, slash    
At themselves, each other.    
What happened      
Between then and now?    
     
Now has become    
A shriveled then,    
Dessicating into an irrelevance,    
None will read    
Nor remember.    
     
I tell myself,    
Tomorrow bring a bowl,    
Gather the berries    
While still you can.    
     
Bear them carefully    
To the one who once    
Walked with you,    
Adored you,    
Back past the year    
Of soybeans,    
Past the year when the tree    
Rested, not a single berry falling,    
To this, fourteen days    
Of abstinence,    
Fasting, in an attempt to save    
What yet remains trembling    
In the heart of this midsummer day.    
     
Written 15 June 2022