Your Watershed
One day the watershed
Nearest to where you were born
Decided to stand up
Out of the valleys it had carved
And become a tree.
It had grown tired
Of being given so much.
It had never wanted
To be given anything,
It had only ever wanted to give.
It was like a tree of glass
Still flowing, full of fish
And waving green weeds,
A few stunned fishermen
Standing on its branches.
But it was a tree so someone
Came along and chopped it down.
Two people, actually.
A father and son.
They used an old crosscut saw,
Pulling the quivering blade
Through those rings of water,
Dampening their boots dark,
Then bucked it up
And sold it off in cords.
All winter people burned
It in their stoves.
It burned beautifully.
Even the fire was deceived,
Believing the water
To be wood, but its smoke,
Its smoke was like
The smoke of veils
When all the bride wants
Is to be invisible.