They thought to cut you down, old larch on the hill, and I say to let them, and I grit teeth as they do.
I am more of a fool than you, no matter the squeals you give the larch as I slap leg to get them flush in the stalks of winter and chew my gum spruce wild.
They not put it to you yet, man, but the red birds hide from the snow in you, blue spruce—blue illiterate, red card-en-nail.
You, Eastern Hemlock, I point you—see you and your primitives: Douglas Fir, Noble Fir, Grand Fir! But only to the Great White Pine I would bow, or to show it more, to fall and roll through the seraphic needles like some vagrant’s dog.
I present myself to you, inordinate things, with my sapped-black arms. I bark and whine, stick my tongue out like the uncouth—me unclothed, sapped and a fool.
Yes! those dead babies watch me and laugh. They kick their fat feet as I stand with the blood of the coniferous over me—
I with them and them with me.
Pitch full the tamarack.
Pitch full the Evergreen.