Elegy with Palms

On Palm Sunday, I look for trillium 

  growing on the shady slope

of a volcanic cinder cone. If you

                                                                                      pick trillium from a mountainside

                                                                                      you’ll bring rain. If you pick

                                                                                      white flora from a pyre of ash,

rupture extinct, steep with scoria,

            earth mud-dark, what will

you bring? Lava, embers, mercy,

                                                                                      terror? Root terr comes from ground

                                                                                      as in molten, subterranean

                                                                as in magma. In the last week of your life

I memorize your hands,

          the meridians– heart, lung,

located on palm side of index and ring.

                                                                                      Meridians of liver and spleen

                                                        on the palm side of thumb,

                                                                                      a circle of longitude passing

through terrestrial poles. Root mer

          from meros means to part. My 

palm on brow. Palm pressed in palm.

                                                                                      When my palm cups 

                                                         your earlobe, I say don’t be afraid.

                                                                                      I say don’t be afraid, though I’m terrified.  

                     If you feed a volcano, 

you can temper it. If you look 

underneath a volcano will you find 

                                                         a spirit confined to the earth? 

                                                         If you look beneath white trillium  

                                                         blooming on a cinder cone will you find

crystals, minerals, magma of molten

grief, or the spheric meristems

             that allow a plant to survive

                                                                                      hard seasons underground? I say

                                                        don’t be afraid, I cup each trio 

                                                         of bracts, triplet of flora. 

My palms, cinder, ash. When I find

white trillium blooming on this cold 

Palm Sunday,  I say don’t be afraid