Dead Wood

Each year it gets harder to say good-bye to the mountains.
Cool air envelops a silver morning - high. I look down at the clouds
as they encase tips and tops, red maple and sweet gum, then settle
into the the valleys and towns.

Smells from the paper mill seem harsh this morning. I'm embarrassed
that the trees smell the fragrance of their own mushy death when
the wind is just right and lays that fragrance like a cremation over the clouds.

I wonder when I get back next summer if the cypress and slippery elm
I have come to know will still be there, or will I smell their pulp instead
as they scent the others with their demise. Perhaps they will be there, still,
and I will see their offspring growing there beside them.