“Aspen Tree” by Hanna Hays
2020
My brother is
an aspen tree:
roots stuck to
a mountainside,
rustling brain
fixed high
in the aether.
He towers
above me,
thin and pale.
I squint into sun
on gilded leaves,
his blue eyes
like our father’s.
Dad is gone:
we remain,
seek the soil to
fill our loss
in every grove.
It is Matthew
I look up to.
2003
Largest living organism:
an aspen grove.
Roots lace like fingers
deep in dense soil
unreachable by sun.
When one tree dies,
groves grow anew.
My brother is
my aspen grove
at a funeral
where everyone
has lost a man
but only we
have lost Dad.
He laces our fingers
on the pew hard as
a mausoleum door,
grief so heavy
we have not begun
to move it, will never
move it entirely.
Matthew is eighteen.
He will drop out
of college after this,
will not return.
Loss buries dreams
deep in dense soil
unreachable by sun.
I am eleven.
I will go into
adolescence
wondering how to
make a ghost proud.
Our grove grows anew
together.
2010
Rivers of rain
cannot thwart
our camping trip,
a high school
graduation gift
from my brother
to me.
We pitch a tent
under aspens,
watched by their
thousands of eyes,
throw hatchets
at pines. I drink
my first beer.
Matthew says
in the mountains,
just outside the
Boulder Canyon,
one Blue Moon
doesn’t count…
A wink.
2013
My brother waits
among autumn aspens
as we hike Blanca Peak.
October 2nd is almost
too late to climb,
too cold at 14, 000 feet,
where air is thin.
Soon the aspens
will be stripped
bare by frost,
but it has been
ten years
since Dad died.
We do this together.
We take a break,
plant ourselves
in fallen gold,
drink our water.
I allow my lungs
to quiet themselves,
legs cease to shake.
Matthew climbs
mountains with me
over and over,
though he knows
I am too slow.
I always catch up;
he always waits.
He coaxes me
to the summit, says
Nobel Prize in Literature
awaits at the top.
I will graduate from
college next year,
degree in English
On snowy summit
he promises
I make Dad proud.
I don’t say
whose opinion
I’ve realized
matters more.
I don’t remind Matthew
that he attended my
performances, plays,
took me to concerts,
burned CDs of Rush,
The Kinks, Led Zeppelin,
bought my first tattoo.
I don’t remind him,
aspen tree brother
of rustling brain
and laced roots,
that he is the one
who has pulled me
up every mountain.
About Hanna Hays
She/Her/Hers
Hanna Hays is a lover of literature from Alamosa, Colorado. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry from Western Colorado University and teaches 9th and 10th grade English Language Arts at Center High School.