Cleaning out closets,

I rediscovered this poem from 17 years ago, when we still lived “up the hill” between Somerset and Grizzly – just outside the Caldor Fire’s burn-scar, 2021:

Memorizing the View

Again today I take a game-trail through manzanita

to this clearing gone wild, stiff and resinous

with bear clover. Here’s the rock. A druid stone

I call it, moon-pale lichen delicate as snowflakes.

If I dug around its base might I find proof

of who lived here? This rock would have drawn

them, like me, to gaze across canyon, watching

sun wash an opposite ridge gold-lavender –

no, this time I need to be more exact. No photo,

with its claim of a thousand words, will do.

These days, we’re so quick to click and move on,

so deft at change.

I stand beside the stone; breathe deeply,

take in every sunset shade. Wait for dusk.

Become the rock’s breath.

~ Taylor Graham