Jack Pine at Tara Manor
(1770 & 1834 & 1917 & 1977 & 2018 AD)

Tara Manor jack pine
arm-waving Maritimer
long-past sea-faring
cult-haired declamation
poem to a wilderness
cultured
cultivated now

you radiate disorder
flustered
clicking needles
clustered
knitting the wind

lop-sided
radical forest church
spired with birds
crows’ nest crowned
growing out extravagant

salted the air
old man’s beard
sprouting fresh bristles
old salt sea salt

always a helping branch
to point the time of day
each rough-barked limb
a friendly hand extended

every night
your black bristling branches
haul down the sun