I saw the cuckoo rest
Upon a branch of the sorrow tree,
Upon a year that you have carried,
Branch by branch, for me.
I am sorry, sorry.

I saw the tempest suck and saw
A thousand choking summer calls
Before it strove to decompose,
Before it shook me bloody free.
I am sorry, sorry.

I saw my need to heal your heart
Within my heart's own healing,
Within desire to no more desire,
But say where swirls the sway
Of morality's blackest star.

I am sorry, sorry,
No more to care no more what thought
Nor how this censored grieving feels,
For heart's loss moved my metaled tears
Beyond the bearing of tears' sour reels
And I rest my blue-scarred brow's fall
Upon a universal nothingness
That confounds
With the utter nothingness of it all.

I am sorry, sorry,
For the tempest-torn bridge whose span
Clings to a cavern impenetrable to conceive;
For embarking us into a night
In which my distant shade recedes
From your touch to a crow-depth's height
That craaks its sorrows drip-dripping on my bark –
Crow-shadowed, cuckoo-nested.
How do they circle, cracked images,
How do they squabble, branch to branch,
How do they settle within my forks and crevices?

I am sorry, sorry,
Glancing up to the cuckoo's plaintive call,
Lest your gentleness destroys that flow
From here to there and here to here,
And caresses that life-torn life's sorrow,
Mindless, mindless sorrow,
Here to here to nowhere,
But always here, always here, always here.

There is too much memoried loss
Stalking the treeless walks of yesterdays
To tolerate all but the heat
Of a constant sun's false rays;
Give me those false rays!
Don't take me there,
I don't want to go there,
Don't take me to that pitiable below,
Don't whisper upon me, breath of breeze,
To anywhere but complete control,
Where forgetfulness is the only compassion.
Don't make me fall, to cry,
Don't cry,
Don't make me cry,
Or else I'll cry a universe
Of grief beyond the cuckoo's grief,
Will die without a whimper-whisper
Of what my life has been,
Just to survive, survive, survive.

Should I, that night, have taken my life,
And left the world to turn,
Should I?
But it's those left who bear the pain
Of others gone and their own
With a hopeless dignity
That keeps that turning turning
And stops the cuckoo sleeping
Upon the self-scarred branches
Of the sorrow tree.

I saw a healer of the healing tree
Reflecting his sorrow back at me
Reflecting the eyelids of your tears
Within his skylined sympathy,
I am sorry, sorry.

You are my failure's result, not symptom,
Some embryoed succumbing to caged perpetuity
Drawing in shock after shock after shock
That is helpless to restore equanimity.
I am sorry, sorry.

Some things it is best to forget,
Some best to reinvent,
Some best to project upon
A silver-honeyed happy tree
Whose crows have gone and branches
Call forth no memory.

I am the crucifix tree,
Crucified, crucified,
Upon the bile of your lustered enmity,
Of an anger and unforgivefulness,
And careless screams to the moon-clouded sky
That refuse to spare me
From fathomless abuse
And a cell-bound conformity
That will never be me.
But no, I cannot ask that –
To be spared –
For I am your misery tree,
Barked in self-pity,
Soaked into my pores,
Warmed through me,
Heartless until it is my heart;
And I am your self-soaked remorse,
Emotionless, except in your emotion,
Motionless, except in your motion,
Spiritless, except in your spirit,
Lifeless, except in your life;
And I am held aloft as you tie love-knots upon me,
Ribbons of sanctified memory,
Tassles of relinquished hope,
Sprigs of half-born empathy;
And I feel your love-hands caress me,
And I am yours, yours, yours,
Your cymbal and your symphony,
Your blessing tree.

Come to my wind-withered arms,
My memory twist of serrated trunk,
My bole of rootfelt misery,
Caress the rings of lives tossed away
In grieving upon pointless pity,
On questions without direction,
And hopes for an end that never ends.

I am your anger,
I am your grieving and your grief.
Oh,
Grieve so, honey-grievous soul,
There is such hurt in harm's groping way,
Such soul-swift swiping at the ending of the day,
Such seamless hurting merging with the night
Of witch-dragged, autumn-hagged delight,
With no certain feeling other than dismay.
I am your hurt,
I am your pain,
My boughs weep with your tears,
My leaves drip the dew from your eyes,
My buds sprout calming affections,
And I wrap you in my heart.

Your silence beckons me to furl my fingered twigs
About your salt-blushed cheeks,
My tongue-tied leaves crestfallen
About your silent tears.

I cannot speak your mystery, my love,
Only dream it upon a dream-mist
Of dawn-dewed soliloquy
That floods my heart with soft sympathy.
My roots run deep, my love,
Enough even for your grief,
And my budded canopy can shield
Your bruisèd lips from the world
In a warming dark of secret empathy.

I am your womb and your rebirth,
Your passageway and your door,
Your barrier and your key,
Your fear and your liberty.
I am your fire of sacrifice,
To burn your soul upon,
And I accept that role gladly.

I am the sympathy tree,
Whose sweet-sucking buds
Hold the drips from your razèd eyes
And offer shelter;
The forgiving tree,
Catharsis given to thee,
Melding your passionate ploy
And spinning forth calm joy.

I am the grieving tree,
On which you tie you weeping memories,
My branches willow as they play
The weight of every cry,
And twist to your cold sigh.

I am the swing tree,
Upon which your joyful laughter dangles free
And reaches up to my topmost ecstasy.

Grieve for me, grief tree!
What shelters the dream, dream tree?
What succors its return,
Letting me return to being
And being in being, rest in being?

Oh, soft sorrow, softly nestle-dozing
In a self-sad sorrowful daze
That seems an infinity of dreaming
And becomes a blessing-hand upon
My sad-cast shoulder's shadow.

Call cuckoo, call cuckoo,
Sorrow, you have cuckold me
And I am the life-losing lover
Dangling from the claw of the crow,
On the utmost branch of the sorrow tree.
Grave crow, cuckoo-craal at my misery
– Because I can do no more than simper-stare
At an immobility that hangs my eternity
Upon the sorrow-man's chafing rope
And lets me dangle sorrow-free.

I want to heal the you-me tree,
Whose blooming cycles rosy lie
Upon the soft-toned buds of summer's time
And let the tempest tear away
And be the cuckold now.
Suckle me, honey tree
And let the robin sugar-sing
The dream of whom I longed to be
That knife-to-stomach day,
Until I am sorry no more, no more,
Until visuals of a flowered future
Of you and you and you and me,
Of me in you dwell in me,
And growing heals disunity.

My branches raise your sweetened song
Upon your cloud-speckled wings
Within my universal heart
And, forgiving and forgiven,
I can stop the world's steep turning
And sleep again and again and again.