fruit from the trees of heaven

With a new birthday at our doorstep, I find myself more often thinking of the children we've lost. How strange it is to have a hole cut out of the fabric of life; Eternally gaping, yet eternally unimaginable.

Trees of Heaven

Sometimes life moves

with the darkness of dreams. The silence

is tangled, & I go to shop

for socks in a music store

while my baby lies dying.

Help, help, is our cry. Mercy twines

through our plots, an impossible weave.

Tangles remain; all children

are bruised, some die. O help

have mercy, tell me the story

of this dream; pluck me a fruit

from the trees of heaven, show me

the baby cradled, a promise

that I will wake up laughing.

- Ruth Goring, from Yellow Doors