**Poetry: Evergreen

 Evergreen

 Not queen anne’s lace - 

          or baby’s breath-

but evergreen 

 -fir and pine-

rooted

in virgin snow. 

Her needles and branches,

the tall straight spine

this is how you measure time.

White roses in glass vases die, 

but rings

 of the spruce carve 

years into wood.

The tree receives- and gives-

the giving way that is life.

Termites and centipedes

suck the marrow of her pole.

Is this what it means

 to be tethered

 to this earth- 

 the cones of imagination

 bearing our future kin?

Bristles nod in the wind:

breathe out (and in)

 so that all of us- 

entwined like roots-

 may live.