Lawrence Tamarack

I GUESS WE CAN SAY

- Oh see, can you say
By the dawn’s early light -

That the tamarack tree
In the backyard is dead?

Three years have passed
Since it threw out its
Shading

Delicate

Tufts of bristles

In the springtime;

The tamarack in this unswampy locus

"Just Keep It Wet!" he said
Is replenishing the earth
In newer ways

It would seem;
What so proudly we hailed
Stands skeletonly

At 30 foot greenless attention;
Pale lichen grows on it now
At the twilights last gleaming

But other tamaracks in their earlier
Life stages
Present sun salutes

As ours once did
In this unlikely place
On this troubled globe

o'er all

Through perilous days and nights

on a college campus, say;
Unblighted
Soar to proud

[dd 5-19-08]