For Barb Yeomans & Dick Callison
My old friends guide us
past the stone wall, their row of roses
all hardy rugosas, the massive oaks and maples
planted one spring five decades ago
wind-shorn of their red and gold leaves
We walk down the long gravel driveway
to the land they first laid eyes on
the once-dense forest of white pine
cedar, fir, hemlock, larch and birch
to the meadow high above the old mine
A mule deer spies on us near the cedars
until we spot her too and she slips away
across the coulee dividing the forest
bought to foil a lurking land shark
visions of view homes dancing in his head
We make our way to their Someday Place
to their youth and their summer dreams
to their morning coffees on the wooden deck
built to hold their teepee high and dry
ringed by golden larch, most lovely of trees
We’ve seen and heard two winter wrens
one solitary squirrel, a crow flying high
on this raw November day
but we are all chilled now, the light gone flat and grey
only the birch trees glow, broken bones on the forest floor
A femur here, a tibia there
branches like ribs and collarbones, cracked
the virus is creeping down the tree-tops
rotting the tree from the inside out
encased by the famously beautiful bark
We walk to their big house slowly, carefully
we help each other over fallen logs
still talking
still laughing
still dreaming
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