I sit atop a mountain of death

(May 2022. Sequoia National Forest. Overlooking a gorgeous mountain view at sunset. Old top knot is a reference to Walt Whitman’s Song of the Rolling Earth.)

I sit atop a mountain of death
Delicate purple flowers poke up from pine needles
The softness of beauty at the edge of things,
The preciousness of loose grips at height.

The old top knot tenses again
As earth shifts its itch from one pressure to another.
Ice crinkles at the crowns of rock’s wrinkles
And release, water relaxing into motion again,
A relief to fall for gravity.

The birds speak louder than me
Of the suitability of this or that branch.

There are young sequoias growing here,
The generation after the holocaust.

I hope to God they outlive me.