LEAVING HUMBOLDT REDWOODS STATE PARK
Now, the Michigan trees are too small.
I long for the low hum of those long lives, with their enormous
thirst for the cool mists off the ocean, and the calm I felt
even as the dark waters rose, threatening to pull me down.
My beloved joined me in the forest, taking pictures of my
hands on the trees and I went back to our beginnings,
when his kiss would light me up as flame; I’d burn for a week
off the match. I’d ride the train back to Ann Arbor, crying
while he ran alongside, pulling faces, blowing kisses.
Thirty four years of fitting our roots to one another;
he is a lifeline to me when I am in the dark waters.
The time we had there lifted me up even as we were driving
away, and back into the less vivid world.
