Laying On A Suburban Lawn - New England

Noon West of Boston and 128 Mid-March Lying on my back
On my sister Pam's sloping lawn
The grass withered under the Winter sun
The grass awaiting the Spring to green__
Beyond the lawn
A steep descends into a gully
An Eastern pine rises from below
Several  others
My eyeball estimate
Over a hundred feet in the air
Over two hundred years old
Its seed birth date
Back to the 18th Century
Older than me
Yet we share separate oldnesses
I 72
From 1952
A 20th Century Man
I'M A TWENTIETH CENTURY MAN
The Kinks
1971 hit___
Now March 2025
I rise from the lawn
Carefully climb down
The steep gully to the Eastern Pine
Stand under its shade
The trunk rises
Bare of branches to the boughs above
I hug the trunk
Three arm length in width
My nose to the bark
Breathe the scent
Close my eyes
Sensing
Northern forests from here to the St. Lawrence River___
Here beneath the Eastern Pine
Pine needles underfoot
How has this giant
Survived the centuries of American greed?__
Same as me
Lucky
My sister Pam stands at the edge of the lawn
I look up and see her
And see__
June 1, 1957
St. Joseph Street
Jamaica Plains
My older brother and I
6 and 5
Stand outside Nana's three-decker
At the end of St. Jospeh's Street
Across the Jamaicaway
Arnold's Arboretum
Trees, and trees and trees__
A station wagon arrives
My father get out
My mother carrying a baby
Pam, my new sister
Almost sixty-seven years ago__
Now 2025
None of us
The tree, she, and me old
Now
We are alive 21st Century man and woman
21st Century Tree fromthe 17th Century
Together
Onward into the future
From the distant past and the now and the beyond___

Below Foto from Famouth Foresides, Maine 1959

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