Zachariah In A Tree

I am afraid, like this,
too close and empty like a
child in the dark feet drawn up
to escape clutching grasps from
no-one knows where, or why.
Once someone said, everytime they crossed a road
they asked themselves do I want to die?
Every car a bringer of flat noiseless dark.

Why are all your friends lost, water should come easy
off a duck’s back and yet why mark a place
where you learn of pain, only to go back there again
and again when no-one is looking? In a heart
there is hope, an endless zoetrope of sunrays
that you use to warm your gut
on winter driven days, and in a head
is going back.

So there you track uphill with your fear
in a sack tied at the top. Climbing a tree
without looking down but knowing all ways
you don’t know how you will, or you won’t, you’ll stay
Zachariah in a tree watching a death’s love in life
like a child in the dark feet drawn up,
monsters rife without looking, just a maybe, and a when,
and a, who would love me, then.