that someone could walk this mountain road and know
the name of every single tree that stands along the way?
If so, who are you, and do these lovelies speak in leafy
tongues, telling you soil and water tales, stories
of too much sun, the absence of bees, how much it pains
them (if it does!) to feel the stab of Acorn beaks?
Do they say how glad they are to hear the first peeps
from the chicks that hatch from eggs the great horned
owls lay? And, when the firestorms leave them lifeless
but still standing as charred poles, do their ghosts
weep with you as you wonder: will I still be alive years hence
when your successors, staunch and green, line the roadway?
