Decimated by five hundred Hiroshimas,
the forest is gone . . .

Wherever I step,
ash, finer than ground glass, roils up . . .

In this graveyard, there is not a branch
for the wind to ruffle.

There are more downed trees
than the eye can count,

more logs in Spirit Lake
than any beaver could possibly dream.

Hemlock, spruce, and fir, stripped of bark, gray as driftwood,
lie on hillsides like quills on a porcupine’s back.

In gullies, where snow shrouds melt, lichen sprout.
If enough dust blows away, fireweed burrows out.

I leave footprints
like Armstrong did on the moon.

At my feet, a spider, the size of an asterisk,
crawls over sand . . .

to begin again
start with small things.

This poem first appeared in American Land Forum and in Eighty on the Eighties: A Decade’s History in Verse (Ashland Poetry Press).
Used here with the author’s permission.