Sugar Pine

TFR Home Page

Contents

Prev. Page

Comments

Sugar Pine

By Thomas Kellar

August '94.
We coasted down
the American River canyon
in a Subaru hatchback
with bad brakes
and a radiator leak,
crossing at the north fork
then red-lining
all the way up the other side
cresting near Forest Hill,
black top surrendering to red dirt.
eight miles more,
Lake Sugar Pine
cool, clear, deep.

Taking off our clothes
we waded out
across soft-bottom mud
fighting to stay upright
till the water reached our shoulders.
Laughing, shivering, holding tight,
we made love

sex under a liquid blanket
of Sierra blue,
snow-runoff baptism,
high-altitude fire.

Late in the day
just before leaving,
you made me promise
that if you died first
I would bring your cremated remains
back there,
scattering ashes on the water.
I said "You're crazy,
I'm ten years older,
smoke and drink like a chimney-fish,
I'll be the first to go"
but you made me promise anyway.

Last night,
in bed alone, sleeping,
I saw Sugar Pine,
the dirt road,
picnic tables,
fire tower,
boat launch,
all of it perfectly preserved,
and somehow wrong.

Dreaming on
I became a hawk
threading the tree line
for what seemed like hours,
eyes down,
weighing the before and after,
tracking change...

And then I understood.

It was so simple,

how did I miss it?

This time
the surface was dark,
the rich, fluorescent,
pre-millennial blue
concealed,
the whole of the lake
covered
in gray-black ash.