As for Me

Northern Maine was my home
before I arrived.
It was what I was all about
all my life
even when I wasn’t living here.
Someday
I will walk into the woods
and become an oak tree,
be cut down
and made into a cross.

Hanging On

He held to the Cross,
blood drops nourishing the earth.
Plant your garden here.

Testimony

Fisher, marten and coyote pelts
hang from my camp walls.

Whitetail deer, you stare at me,
elk horns of Colorado
point me out.

You gather in testimony on the pine
walls – for or against?

“Hunt me some game,” said my father,
“that I may bless you.”*

* Gen. 27:4–5

Top banner artwork: Detail from Neil Welliver, Sky in Cora’s Marsh, 1986. Image courtesy of Alexandre Gallery, New York.