as i read it now

i have underlined my life

the best parts dog-eared

Too old to forget

 The lads we send off to war

Too young for regret

 A person should read

And hear a comforting song

For respite each day

                                         The revenant nest

Undone by last summer’s gale

Ospreys undeterred

 Barefoot in summer

Ice cream cones and piggyback

Reaching for bubbles

 And then he wondered

Could that have been what she meant

Or was it nothing

 Is there ideal love

Beyond the acts of loving

Does it live without

 It is the same trail

An elder pine has fallen

No heed for my way

An archival oak

Spanning over years and lives

Lynchings and picnics

    250

Which truths are self-evident?

What unites us now?

 The length of my life

Is trifle when compared to

The length of my health

Issue of the fire

An omen of smoke and ash

Plume of nature’s rage

History in wood

Written with light and dark rings 

Thriving - suffering

 Rest under a tree

A fine and tender safety

The song of the leaves

 She is still - like grass

Who sleeps under the forest

And wakes bathed with dew

 We live in a storm

A swelling cloud of stardust

Mostly empty space

 First Americans

Stories before all others

No nation -  just earth

Today is special

A calendar palindrome

6/26/26

 Every four years

We decide in whom we place trust

And hope we were right

 I find atonement

That I am smaller than trees

And host to less life