The Dark Green Conifers

another day in the woods. on Strawberry ridge

looking out over undulating green hills to

the next great wall of mountains. the last

morning clouds left from last night's storm

hanging in the valley mistily. the sun eventually

burns them away.

the respect between old Paul Karlsen and I continues

to exist. even though he's a Mormon and I'm a fallen

New Yorker. the work is comparatively easy, lifting

hundred pound bags, so you can just imagine what

we do other days. in fact, it's fun, especially for

young Bates. we get all white (and our lungs dusty).

on the way to and from the work site I read

in Silent Spring, the chapter against herbicides, gathering

inspiration for the upcoming controversy. in the end

perhaps I'll be fired for refusing to lay down Tordon

beads. realizing this, as I drive with Bates,

I see the dark green conifers and begin to miss them.

                            Rocks and rattlesnakes, bluebells

and mountain daisies, grasses and cactuses, mahogany

bush, lodgepole pine and quaking aspen, lush forest

and dry sun-tortured mountainside, wind and seed

carried by wind, ants, streams, hummingbird

and hawk, deer, badger, ground squirrel, wolverine.