“I know a river that is a half-an-inch wide. I know because I measured it and sat beside it for a whole day. It started raining in the middle of the afternoon. We call everything a river here. We’re that kind of people.” –Richard Brautigan In Watermelon Sugar
Bury them down deep where they don’t see them.
That’s what he told me. Twelve years ago, it’s what I did. And I waited.
Now the shovel doesn’t dig right. The dirt falls into the hole faster than I can dig. The hole gets wider. I can’t find the things I buried back then. Putting down the shovel, I turned towards the woods where I knew I could walk through the trees and into the next field. There were no holes there – nothing buried. There I could plant the tree along the edge of the woods. There I could lean against the fence post, watching the birds come back in the spring, watch the grass turn brown through the summer. There I could wait for another time to come.
Shaken Rain 