a fifty third poem...'tree'

Clara said once I could never let her down, she said that, and she confused she meant it at the time, and at the time I thought time itself didn’t matter, we were going to be together, through the good times, the bad times, and all the other times when nothing much good or bad happens.  Clara, she said those words, those three pretty little words, and again I thought she meant it.  I love you, never let me down, I’m depending she said, you see that tree out there in the yard I said, yes she said, since there’s only one tree in the yard, that tree is a metaphor for me I said and I ain’t going anywhere, I am rooted like that old tree out there and you can rest in my boughs I said.  But now I remember Clara looked at me strange.  Strange looks, a man can tell when something ain’t right, and strange looks give it all away.  Some people forget a woman’s eyes are a window into their souls, and Clara, hers was right open there in front of mine, but at the time I thought time itself didn’t matter, as well as a whole lot of other things, and I see it now, but I was blinded then - the old sand timer on the sideboard in the kitchen was already tippin’, and soon the china would be rattlin’, tables and chairs movin’, the earth under our feet shakin’, the whole house reverberatin’ with the sound of us fightin’.  Clara said once I could never let her down, she said that, and she confused she meant it, she didn’t understand what it meant to put down roots, and that my love was a seed that only needed even just the thought of her to grow into a tree, like the one out there in the yard.