A hundred years ago, your
grandfather was here and now,
in you, he’s here again. He has
a full forest for his last will and
testament. For four million
years it was, here, perfect,
until America mobilized
its teeming teenagers to
head west, young men
bound for the boundless
beauty of virgin land, to
set themselves against
lowlands of forests of
oak and pine and fragrant
cedar and other trees
that had never felt the ax.
So they set to manslaying,
in Idaho. in Oregon. and here
in Placerville, where you
can almost swear you can
smell his cologne in the trees,
see his reflection in the window
of the bar that was once the
brothel. Follow the logger roads
that he freed from the marble
of the unsculpted mountains.
Stop when the sawdust grows
too thick to resist, where the
old trees have softened from
rain and time. Pick the one
that looks most like him,
and wonder what boy he was
before he made the man that
made you. Run your thumb along its grain,
and read the braille of its years.
