Like Only Yesterday

There comes a moment
when
you notice
that the crab-apple tree
out front,
or the white pines
along the fence in back
are suddenly tall,
taller than your imagination
had kept them all these years,
and all at once those years pass.
A moment when you realize
that you haven't brought to mind
for weeks or months
or years
a dead grandfather,
whom you loved so much,
or a schoolyard terror,
who angered you so much,
and in that moment
for a moment,
in the guilt or triumph of indifference,
they matter more than ever.
A moment when your little sister
is not so little,
has breasts,
and you wonder how to mourn
a girl who did not die
but just became a woman...