Jane Hirshfield, poet

I am reading Richard Powers's The Overstory. It is long, and slow. There will be a book report one of these days. But in the interim, here is a poem, one that relates to that book.

Today, Another Universe

by Jane Hirshfield

The arborist has determined:
senescence        beetles        canker
quickened by drought
                                   but in any case
not prunable    not treatable     not to be propped.

And so.

The branch from which the sharp-shinned hawks and their mate-
cries.

The trunk where the ant.

The red squirrels' eighty-foot playground.

The bark    cambium    pine-sap    cluster of needles.

The Japanese patterns        the ink-net.

The dapple on certain fish.

Today, for some, a universe will vanish.
First noisily,
then just another silence.

The silence of after, once the theater has emptied.

Of bewilderment after the glacier,
the species, the star.

Something else, in the scale of quickening things,
will replace it,

this hole of light in the light, the puzzled birds swerving around it.

The tree pictured above is Luna, a 1,000-to-1,500-year-old tree which Julia Butterfly Hill occupied for 738 days between December 10, 1997, and December 18, 1999, ultimately saving her from loggers. The patched scar in the base of the tree was caused by a vandal in 2000, but the repairs were successful and Luna remains healthy and protected today, her location on private land undisclosed to the public.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Monterey County Covid-19 stats for yesterday: 17,379 confirmed cases, 119 current hospitalizations, and 153 deaths--up 222, 5, and 5 since the day before; up 1,180, 29, and 13 since I last posted a week ago. The daily average number of cases over the last 14 days is 241, which translates to 55 per 100,000 residents; over the duration of the pandemic, 1 in 24 residents have been infected (if I'm understanding the NYT maps correctly). Today we go into another Shelter-in-Place period, with all but essential services severely limited.

Stay healthy. Appreciate the trees and the length of time, for some beings at least.