father ponderosa
your children are all here
on the pin-wheeled edge
of your shadow
you are the idea of creation
before mountains
watching over this town
from your station
on Methodist Mountain
can i say that you are beautiful?
brother cottonwood
with your broken crown
and sweetly furrowed arms
gesturing toward home ground
soon you will be a grey cross for the land
when the trains ran coal up the river
but still your old roots
will find their way
again through clay
to awaken the residue
of the river learning the land
and your wistful
and shading crown
will turn its heady face
to the high-sun sky
can i call you promise?
honest old town
wood smoke
made of vanilla
and some slippery
and white-boned
part of the river
is trailing off towards Orion
offering its carbon breath
to night air and a million tiny deaths
and our own accumulation
born in the silent hours
of the long fallow of the heart
gathering on the gravel tongues
of dead glaciers
and we realize
that to deny roots
their dark and sinking destiny
is equal to shame
cast into the river
because we can never
fully love the land
and our town
with its legacy of gables
and broken side-walks
almost feels more ancient
than the mumbling river
with its song
of always leaving
and we also are left
to sigh and know
that it is perhaps
the holy breath
rising from the fallible
and ever leaning
flesh of spring
– Craig Nielson
