There's a Wolf Pine by the river

That's older than the rest

Designated by city fathers

To bear some kind of witness

And they sent a little Boll Weevil

To deform the root

You grew up defined as

The reflection of your youth

And in June of 1816

A volcanic cloud's black shadow

Reached New England via Asia

And droped three feet of snow

And every cow silent in pasture

And every crop failed by degrees

As if in some hemisphere reversal

You can read it in its wooden memory

You can read it in its leaves

If you go back

Deeper in that circumference

Before you even were a dream

The Abenaki looked up, gulped, and wondered

If they had the proper offering

Go and count the purple rings of Saturn

Or of your ringed and wounded heart

But there ain't no long division

That could ever keep these two things apart