One dead tree
on a featureless plain.
Windswept grassland,
empty and forlorn.
Reddish gold scrub brush
shudders under an uneasy sky.
Far in the distance,
dark forests climb,
until the mountains break through
to point accusingly upward.
A cold wind moans mournfully.
The sun
lingers behind cover,
as if dismissive of this place.
Here and there
an old game trail,
but nothing’s been this way
in quite a while.
The valley echoes,
but not with sound.
it is a memory of pain
that calls out.
That lone tree,
stands like a discarded bone.
A remnant of the life
that once existed here.
In the grass,
just under the dirt,
lay many bones.
Human,
animal,
and older.
Hard to even tell
what kind of tree it once was.
Possibly birch,
the only hardwood that grows
out west.
How does this one stand?
Is it the depth of its roots?
Or the strength of its trunk?
Who knows.
A lonely sentinel
in a dead place.
A place that life avoids
for fear of remembering.
A lone wolf howls.
Its call echoes
through the foothills
in the last light of day.
The wind keeps up
its endless sigh.
It is late season,
but even in winter
nothing changes.
This land remains
empty.
DJR – 2023
