When I was a child I went out to the long hedge

     along the back of our property. I could crawl

          in under the leaves and branches to the middle.

There I saw that there was space for me to move

     down the length of the inside, the leaves so thick

          I could barely see outside.  I found an indentation

in the ground where I could sit and lean against a large

     branch. My happiest thought was that no one in the world

          knew where I was.

In Bali, many years later I went snorkeling with a couple

     from San Francisco I’d met. We took a small boat out

          to Menjangan Island, not much more than a rock with vegetation.

After swimming with the most beautiful colors and sea life imaginable,

     I sat on the rock by myself, happy when I considered that no

          one in the world knew where I was.

How alike we are.

trees and pensive people—

considering the choices we have

wondering whether we have

what it takes:

patience, strength, connecting with those

nearby

and further away

to build our forest and family

around us

Smoke and dust—

not even history books

can change the fact

that we’ll be gone

achievements unrecorded

for the most part,

anger subsided

to nothing

think of the joy first—

the mountains

and the music of

those you loved

all will be forgotten

in the years

to come

after the water

flows,

when we’re gone.

As much as I hated those

liverwurst sandwiches that

came from the basement kitchen

of Sacred Heart Hospital,

picked up after he’d made his rounds,

and the communal ass-freezing

sitting in the duck blind with my father

waiting for the ducks to

fly over, taunting us—

there were moments:

silence in thought,

or quiet conversation about

my mother or

my younger brothers

that brought our

bind together.