Winding grain
Of twisting outer spiral shell

Stubby broken limbs at angles
Peeled off outer layers askew;
A big rock
Locked in taproot clasp
Now lifted to the air;
Amber beads of ancient sap
In powdery cracks of red dry-rot
                     fallen away
From the pitchy heartwood core.

Beautiful body we walk on:
Up and across to miss
                      the wiry manzanita mat.
On a slope of rock and air,
Of breeze without cease —

      If “meditation on decay and rot cures lust”
      I’m hopeless:
      I delight in thought of fungus,
      beetle larvae, stains
                  that suck the life still
                  from your old insides,

Under crystal sky.
And the woodpecker flash
      from tree to tree
      in a grove of your heirs
On the green-watered bench right there!

      Looking out at blue lakes,
      dripping snowpatch
                 soaking glacial rubble,
      crumbling rocky cliffs and scree


Corruption, decay, the sticky turnover —
Death into more of the
Life-death same,
  
       A quick life:
       and the long slow
       feeding that follows —
       the woodpecker’s cry.