My Soul Turns Into A Tree

"My soul turns into a tree,
And an animal, and a cloud bank.
Then changed and odd it comes home
And asks me the questions.  What should I reply?"
~Hermann Hesse    

She's been telling him for months that she can taste God -
the smoky, woody taste of eight years old
and grapes
and see her brother's bicycle's back as she chases after him,
once again.  

She can see the Grandfather holding ice cream
and hear the bell that rings in the silence long after he is gone.  

Sometimes, inside the right tree,
under the right angle of the sun
anything becomes possible.

Sometimes a small duckling can be saved from drowning
while another floats in an irreconcilable upside down.  

When you are eight, anything is possible:
mud is still a pie, the sun is the warmest oven
and God can talk to you.  

The smiles that were once sweet and cajoling
now become unbelieving and/or irreconcilably upside down.  

But an eight year old pays little mind to these things -
she believes that grandfathers never go,
that God is in the rock in her hand,
the taste in her mouth  

the trees, clouds, the animals
and in her ever "becoming" soul.