Memorial Day
By Aaron Shurin
And still one looks to the tree to paraphrase the sky, arbiter of wind and sun. The hills with their crosshatch houses and vertical streets ... You gave an impassioned speech to the pigeons, who lifted, as if with one wing, into a wheeling arc: hiss of the air streaming through their gray feathers; it sounded like kiss me or kill me I couldn’t tell.
This is the life of your time. Look the clouds puff and streak as a gesture of faith. You are written and erased
Source: Poetry (June 2025)