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Pale birches waver above the
Water, their branches white,
Ribbonlike, gathered heads of
Growth, caulked, somnolent.
Foxbrush pines rise over
The hill, silent and brown,
Their bodies packed beneath
Them in serried rows like
Filaments of baleen. Fires
Have scarred whole sections
And these lie white, bald,
Lapses in the continuity.
There is an atmosphere of
High light about the place.
The pines seem to have been
Interrupted in the process
Of breaking weightlessly and
Lifting from the terrestrial.
Standing water pools beneath
The birches. In it is shown
A sudden, fallen world, one
As bright; inverse, trees
White roots in herringbone,
And later stars manifesting
Their glow of spawn, husk—
All conjoined, in archeol.