Steven Carter
November 1965
Every tree is a witness tree: live-oaks, willows, aspens, elms, eucalyptus. Scattered among the imperturbable rocks of the Berkeley hills, they keep vigil over my mother's funeral in a chapel my brother and I can't find. We search neighborhood by neighborhood in the rain until, as blue light from San Francisco Bay cloaks the city, we give up and decide to head north, looking, as the poet1 says, for the source of the chill in our bones.
ripples darken –
in a blue mist
Angel Island
Notes:
1. Jack Spicer. |
