Kings River Canyon – Joe Milosch
July 15th, 2013 by admin
Kings River Canyon
This old, bald pine has to know it's dying. Maybe it over heard the whispers of evergreens, growing on these glacier-sheered cliffs, or maybe the pine knows it intuitively as it knows yearly it has to manage to squeeze out a thin ring between heart and bark. Only in the middle does this old tree show any green. The top ten feet are marked entirely by dead branches. In the lower twenty feet, bees nest in a charcoal scar from an old fire. They form a blossom, brushing back a ribbon of sunshine that threads itself through shade and ground fog. At its base squirrels abandon old tunnels to dig new ones. Yet, this tree still roots down in the face of winter, in the face of a spring thaw. In the grip of summer’s morning breeze, it creeks as it stands solitary and cinctured by a semi-circle of saplings too supple to creak. Joe Milosch is a retired highway inspector and MFA-trained poet. His 2005 book, The Lost Pilgrimage Poems, was published by Poetic Matrix Press. His upcoming volume, Landscape of Hummingbird and Woman, will be published as part of our Summer 2013 Season of Poetry. This piece is a selection from that manuscript.Posted in: Uncategorized, Forever Journal