for the ponderosa pine,
with the blurred headlights of the sun
swinging back and forth through the sky,
and the stars only half as bright as they should be.
Out of the strobing cold comes a deep lungfull of green
that's held by the hills and fields

for an instant in perfection.
The frames of days fly together, bats fly
through the theoretical darkness in between.
Wolf lichen dance in and out of the bark's deep grooves
while vain and multiplying aspen
forever dress and undress. Nothing but a blur
of brown in the chameleon grass—the horses graze.

And I am here too,
one of the smaller ghosts, a breeze
blowing under the crown of branches,
part of the cataclysmic scent on the wind,
all of us buzzing together like six billion wasps.
Some of us reappear in the faces of children,
some of us vanish into the living earth.