"Now, youse can't leave"

The Rosetta Beer

Abandoning can after can
in the Buck Meadow motel,
H.D. becomes transluscent, impossible,
raving over what he left
on the unit that day.

Polished wood in his hand,
splintered like a dark femur
after 20 seasons, in the corner
the foot-long blade
tonguing its last crust.

A thousand trees a day
thin as a wire
permanently drunk
and whiskery.

A thousand trees a day
the jet-planes crawled up our backs
chopping rocks
tied up in roots

(at the first crack the wet tree bag
bites the hip like some land animal
choking you down, the wet pounds
and the needles)

whether it snowed or rained
with his hoedad tapping, knees
hinging over dragged ash,
a broken unit,
planting 200 incense cedar
400 p. pine
100 white fir
100 red fir
100 sequoia
100 sugar pine

planting through angry beargrass
and buried stone
flicking the worn arm
at the exposed rump of California
where it wore away,

he opens a small hole, secures the root
with a heel already half-swung
into the ensuing sheath, a cloth
tied over his head, mountain sunshine
and a beard of creased wool

a thousand trees a day
at 14 cents a tree
and a cold-pack of beer
in the lunging Ford

speaking in tongues
after 15 beers,
toward the end of the night,
H.D. is long past counting,
rolling in the spirit, lank body
jumbled among
his underthings, earth-colored boots.

"Rye whiskey, rye whiskey, rye whiskey I cry,
If I don't get my whiskey I surely will die"