A crazed rabbit - see finish - stands on its pedestal
here at the raccoon headquarters
in the Odd Fellows hall.
The pedestal is a piece of our beloved Tamarack
that stood higher than the house
at 517 Arcadian.
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
