There you lay
Skinny fingers stretching
Across the creek
Like a goblin reaching for a small child.
I never said thank you
For being the perch for
the speckled breast
and orange throat of the flicker
I learned to love.
Or for being the cupboard
Where squirrels scrambled
In and out of their winter stash.
The tenor crack before you fell
Called me from the second floor;
I wondered from above how quickly
The beaver will skin your hide
Transform you in the landscape
To a pile of sticks.