Letter to the Person Who Carved His Initials into the Oldest Living Longleaf Pine in North America
by Matthew Olzmann
Tell me what it’s like to live without
curiosity, without awe. To sail
on clear water, rolling your eyes
I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
at the end of a bad year. Trees begin
to outnumber houses. Rain turns to snow
as fields hang like paintings.
