For the dead

It's all the twos on a twenty four hour clock
when I glance to my left, expecting
to see it there, proud above the grass...

I would make out faces in the bark;
an old man laughing,
three children side by side.
My eyes would follow the trunk
up in to the sky
as I noted the ingrained scenes of life
dancing towards the clouds.

When the sun shone down
I would sit,
my back against it;
the patterns it left
felt as if they would never fade.

Despite this absence
the garden grows,
the sun shines down
and our lives blossom
from the roots of yesterday.

It's all the two's on a twenty four hour clock
and it is as if the patterns are still there
just as I expect to make out the face
of the old man laughing.