Redwood Thoughts

(2020)

I am pacing back and forth here walking this dead redwood tree looking down now after so long looking up at the sunny shady canopy of tall treetops thinking tall green thoughts, high and free thoughts, thoughts flying high and free displacing assumed blue air, thoughts there through here and here through there, manywhere more than everywhere, free to play with seemingly endless branches of trees of possibilities and possibly infinite (and, for us small things that die, the appearance of infinity is all we need, and that’s the American dream) clear air, these thoughts soaring, exploring, heretherethereherehere—
baby birds,
sometimes singing.

The log, the dead giant, reds of earth and blood, dappled greens and browns chiaroscurious, the earth in massive miniature, the shadow-making sun shining scattershot on these queens crowning the final coast.

A very American thought—
the sun is always shining directly at me, no matter where I am or what’s in the way.
Our sun, and every source of light in the universe, has rays directed right at us, always—
a true thought universally, but one which America, in its pride, has by chance thought best.

All the greatest things die
And greater things live.

Redwood grandparents must be so proud of how tall their grandkids have grown—
The molecules and information from the old soul can see proudly from the spring green canopy of their offspring.

I wish I could eat my grandma.

I, the new neighbor, tell her how fine her those large young ones look, so strong and tall and beautiful, and she nods in her bed and says
Yes, I love all my growths with my whole being and I would die for any one,
But I do love the strongest the best.