for tara on her birthday

what's one more year?
we're so blurry, you and i.
when you wake, rise in the mornings...
do you ever really wake?
and for that matter, do you ever rest?
we are losing sleep, and with it, dreams,
and we forget things that should never be forgotten.
small things.

well, i've been up there. to the north.
to forgotten land. untouched by hands like ours.
seen the devastated blocks of our province.
clear-cut. devoured.
and the swamps that remain.
cemeteries of hope.
hope that we shove back in to the earth
in the form of ten cent saplings,
over and over in futility.
i walked off the land aware of the possibility
that no one will walk where i just walked
for a hundred years... if ever.

and i thought of you. many times.
hours every day.
how our tragedies develop rings within them.
rings of knowledge. sadness, what have you.
how we grow roots but they don't dig deep.
they don't hold on tight.
because we know we will have to tear them up
sooner or later, and they sense our indifference.
and i thought of friendship.

and now i think of how one day
we will be discovered, the way we truly are.
hiding.
men will come and mark us... with x's.
like the trees by the river,
we will sit and wait our turn.
and eventually we will be cut.
and as they do it they will find your rings.
and then they will know heartbreak,
the humour and leadership you embodied
will become evident...
the happiness.
they will learn from you as i have.
and they might say 'happy birthday'
as they saw our tiny existence into chunks,
and hand them over to history.

but know that i would be proud
to fall alongside you,
the same way we have risen.
because that is what friends do.
and in the mornings, even if i never truly wake,
i feel our roots touching,
becoming entangled
underneath the concrete we live on.