This evergreen forest is nothing like my mother, so greenly
indifferent to its own light and beauty. In the late hours
 
she would open the shades to palm trees, birdcall, light
a Marlboro, turn on the jewelry channel. It’s been 15 years.
 
I’m still not the daughter she thought I would be. The forest
is not the forest I thought it would be, too green for my grief.
 
I find myself in love with each rock, a chip of sky-blue bird shell,
moss and lichen, their fungal creeping, earth seeping, exhaling.
 
It's all such luxury, I swoon. Embrace each little bit of suffering,
said my YouTube yoga teacher this morning. I finally find a form
 
her soul might take in deadwood snag, ghostly and unbranched,  
a fall that came by storm. I'm eye level with the holiest of holes
 
chiseled by devoted flickers, now a heartwood chapel
for living bats and maggots and lush green bracken.

Marietta Brill

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