Elm Recollection

As the season’s heat begins
blue hot like the flame tips coming
from the gas cook stove
I remember the outline
of the old elm as it covered
a house where I grew up.
Under the green quilt of it’s shade
we would be movie stars
making up our drama
as the words fell
from our small cherry mouths
all the words rose spent from
each performance
swallowed in the upright mountain of leaves
our house like a toy beneath
it’s greening giant architecture.
The living castle of the yard
always bigger than everything,
always there
until it took a closer look
at mortality, unable to uproot
and outrun the blight
the silent black villain
who murdered our cool
fortress from the sun.