its grayscale carcass twisted, bent, and frozen
lying on its side quite uncomfortably
This is how I first found it and this is how I only know it
Never mind the life it had before
all the family photos it graced through the sixties
with sisters and fathers
red and white checkered shirts tied in the front
smiling red lips hung from horn-rimmed sun glasses
and black pony tails snapping in the wind
I’ll never remember Ansel steadying his tripod on smooth granite
and closing down that iris to a pinhole small enough
to capture the solemnity of its still-beating heart
its soft, wooden heart interred in the center of hundreds of concentric rings
invested in bark benumbed by whipping winds and searing suns
I can never recall, I can never go back
before Sentinel was South Dome
before South Dome was Sakkaduch
to dance wildly on top of the world
with enchanted Miwoks who spoke its language
who knew its name not in their minds but in their souls
in the sinew of their muscles and in the marrow of their bones
they once stood there in wonder as well
in awe of this lonely Pine above mankind
whose roots had found a home
where no soil would quarter it
whose ancient skin withstood eons of torture
from belligerent rain and biting snow
I'll never know the truth of this dead tree
deformed before my feet
just as my children will never know
my grandfather’s memories
