The Olive Trees

The olive trees
do not ask
where the missing branches went.

They lift themselves
toward another morning,
silver underneath,
green where the light arrives.

I walk among them
thinking of my daughter.

Not the child.

The woman
I never came to know.

The sea goes on
with its endless practice
of touching the shore,
then leaving it,
touching it again.

There are things
that return.

The tide.

The swallows.

The evening wind.

There are things
that do not.

I have spent years
looking toward a path
that remained empty.

Not standing there.

Only looking.

There is a difference.

Now,
I think,
I am learning
what the hills
have known all along.

The earth
does not argue
with what has happened.

It receives
the fallen leaf.

The broken branch.

The stone
that cannot be lifted.

And still,
in spring,
something opens.

I do not know
whether grief
is something
we carry,

or something
that carries us

until one morning
we notice
we have walked farther
than we imagined.

This happened.

I lost her.

The words
do not change
because I whisper them.

Nor because I refuse.

The sky
remains as wide.

The cicadas
continue their fierce song.

The olives
go on ripening
without asking
who will gather them.

Perhaps
this is all
I can learn today.

Not how
to stop loving.

Not how
to stop grieving.

Only how
to stand
in the same sunlight,

holding
what cannot be mended,

and still
feel the warmth
upon my face.