Finding Sequoias

I.

The road climbs

Winding up

And around, and up

Chaparral, grasses

Buckeye, redbud

Canyons and ridges opening

As we go

Deeper, tawny layers

Emerging below, beyond

Lines of mountains

Shoulders and ribs

Thighs, feet

The shades of haze

Light and earth

The gray pine, brush, grass, scrub

Painting the day

All spreading out

From the river below

Barely heard

II.

Swing around, north side

Plunge into ancient trees

Tall, and thick, lush-needled

Long-limbed Fir, Sugar Pine, Cedar, Jeffrey

Oh, the scent

Air fresh like you can never tell

Washes nose to throat to heart

To self

To home like Mom’s cooking

To ground for your feet

And the understory flaming

November Dogwood,

Round purple yellow Redbud leaves

And yellow-gold Maples

Splashed through the conifers

Like breaking whitecaps

The color so pure, clear

You could dive and swim into it

III.

Then we see them

Dawn-red trunks

Ten times as thick

Whales among seals

Bears to foxes

And they don’t narrow down

Just ascend unchanged

Climb up broad, strong

Through the feather branches of

Sugar Pine, Cedar, Jeffrey

Climb above their cousin’s light tips

Millennial columns of

Captured sun—centuries’ rain

Sequoia!

IV.

Approaching from a distance

Treading on quiet fronds

I glimpse it, peering through

The brush of needles,

An immense trunk

And near the foot,

My head flung back,

I look up the wall of bark,

To sculptured branches far up

Emerging from the body like whole trees

Canopy a massive plume

Conversing with mountains.

Tears—and I stand

Quiet, searching to

Comprehend

Three thousand years

Of being

Here

This place

Storms and sun

Full moons, new moons,

Cyclic fires

Rains, fog, centuries’ roll

Feet of 1000 generations of

Climbing squirrels!

High trill voices and wind song

How many starlit nights?

Summers endlessly returning

Three million cones grown and dropped

A billion seeds

What is this

Standing before me, above me?

V.

In the growing silence

I feel

The vast interior of the tree

Simple

Like a warm hall

Vaulted high

Open broad, within me

The wood strong, light

To the center core

The living cambium sail is quivering

Unsuspected under wide stretch of bark

Branch wood is rooted deep in heart wood

Feather fronds like kelp toss

In the ocean of air

High winds and soft breezes, currents

And roots that spread as wide

As wide as any being might spread.