Wisconsin, 2013

if it never
changed we wouldn’t
call it weather

in mid-April a bit
of snow falls in
Oshkosh, Wisconsin

I’m here with family
for my mother’s
funeral service

she lived and died
in a way that makes
everything seem okay

I don’t take the
blood line idea
too seriously, though

we like to trace
it back and call it
our own tree

but the outward
branches are nowhere
near the trunk

and we avoid thinking
of the slower, ungainly
creatures at the root

or the chart lines become
increasingly selective
in the foggy distance

we leafy expressions
in an imagined forest
of others, the bothers

our differences
belie our deep connections
and change does

come like unwelcome
weather defying the
same ol’ same old

but if it never
changed we wouldn’t
dare call it life