Where is Yakutat?

Where is Yakutat?

Tucked into the forelands, nestled between Sitka Spruce,

Raven and Eagle share with Glacier Bear and Black-tailed Deer.

Without fog, eighteen thousand vertical feet of relief is revealed

On the eve of sunrise, cast in pink, purple, and fiery red-orange

Begets the Coho in the last days of life upon the pebbles

Of the Sitak and the Ahrnklin Rivers, fighting currents.

I ask him What is there to do for fun in Yakutat? Drink, he

Casually admits, and I remember, that’s the same thing we do

For fun in every other hamlet called home, as we’re all left

Alone strumming the chords of our own panoramic hinterland.

Dendrometric Transect

Dendrometric Transect

9 point 2. 3 point 7. 6 point 9.

The graduated metallic tape

Calibrated to 3 point 1 4 is

Held with thumb and index finger,

Using both hands, slipped behind

The girth of her trunk measuring

Diameter at breast height—

As if you’re taking her bra off.

From her rings you know

She’s only 19, but through

The fog, with no fire, you leave

Her and reach for another.

Photo by Amanda Byrd, UAF ACEP, as seen on FaceBook.

Your Resources

Your Resources

Hemlock and Sitka Spruce stand

dozens of board feet upward,

pointing to the heavens,

pointing to raven and eagle,

where the clouds forget your name,

darkening Disenchantment Bay.

Published in O-Dark-Thirty:Summer Edition 2013

The Review is out, a seasonal literary journal from the Veterans Writing Project called O-Dark-Thirty.  I have a poem published in the summer edition.