How Shall I Remember You? Poem by Steven Federle

How shall I remember you
searching memory’s dark, dry rooms?

Under high ceilings and dim attic lamps
I hear only echoes of my childhood’s lost past.

You’re calling me outside, past the dark screen door
onto the back porch, to watch the gathering evening storm,

and there I see the willow tree, dancing in the wind
its long green leaves thrashing the sky, its supple branches bend

when following its sure, straight path, the lightning struck it down
and, like all things ultimately, smashed it dying into the ground.

Although I’ve searched these dry, long years after both of you had died,
my tears are done, I see the sun, and my flashing anger is now satisfied.