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
