An Arbor

An Arbor

by Linda Gregerson

The world's a world of trouble, your mother must   

                      have told you   

               that. Poison leaks into the basements

and tedium into the schools. The oak   

                      is going the way

               of the elm in the upper Midwest—my cousin

earns a living by taking the dead ones   

                      down.

               And Jason's alive yet, the fair-

haired child, his metal crib next   

                      to my daughter's.

             Jason is one but last saw light five months ago

and won't see light again.

                                                  · 

Leaf against leaf without malice   

                     or forethought,

            the manifold species of murmuring

harm. No harm intended, there never is.   

                     The new

            inadequate software gets the reference librarian

fired. The maintenance crew turns off power one            

                     weekend

            and Monday the lab is a morgue: fifty-four

rabbits and seventeen months of research.   

                     Ignorance loves   

          as ignorance does and always

holds high office.   

                                                  ·

Jason had the misfortune to suffer misfortune   

                   the third

          of July. July's the month of hospital ro-

tations; on holiday weekends the venerable   

                   stay home.

          So when Jason lay blue and inert on the table

and couldn't be made to breathe for three-and-a-

                  quarter hours,   

         the staff were too green to let him go.

The household gods have abandoned us to the gods   

                  of juris-

         prudence and suburban sprawl. The curve

of new tarmac, the municipal pool,   

                  the sky at work

         on the pock-marked river, fatuous sky,

the park where idling cars, mere yards   

                  from the slide

         and the swingset, deal beautiful oblivion in nickel

bags: the admitting room and its stately drive,   

                  possessed   

         of the town's best view.

                                                 ·

And what's to become of the three-year-old brother?   

                  When Jason was found   

         face down near the dogdish—it takes

just a cupful of water to drown—

                   his brother stood still

         in the corner and said he was hungry

and said that it wasn't his fault.   

                  No fault.

         The fault's in nature, who will

without system or explanation   

                make permanent

         havoc of little mistakes. A natural

mistake, the transient ill-will we define   

                as the normal

         and trust to be inconsequent,

by nature's own abundance soon absorbed.   

                                                  ·

Oak wilt, it's called, the new disease.   

                Like any such

         contagion—hypocrisy in the conference room,

flattery in the halls—it works its mischief mostly   

                unremarked.   

         The men on the links haven't noticed

yet. Their form is good. They're par.   

                The woman who's

         prospered from hating ideas loves causes

instead. A little shade, a little firewood.   

                I know

         a stand of oak on which my father's

earthly joy depends. We're slow   

                to cut our losses.