Sentinels

a poem to end the year on

For my last letter of the year, I'm sending you all a poem that I wrote back in January of this year, along with a photo of what I was looking at when I wrote it.

To everyone who enjoyed a 2023 that was, on balance, a happy year, I wish you more of the same in 2024. And to everyone who, like me, had a 2023 that needs to be taken out behind the barn and shot, I hope you (and I) have a much, much better 2024. I'll see you all next year (I can never say something like that without hearing the authoritative voice-over from my favorite TV show when I was seven promise to return at the “same Bat-Time! Same Bat-Channel!”)

And thank you so much to all of my subscribers, paid (special content coming your way in 2024!) and unpaid. Thank you for reading, liking, commenting, and just being out there in the world somewhere, linked by a love of words and the magical internet.

SENTINELS

Winter wood

bonelike bare

white on white on white.

Beech birch blackgum

white oak red oak willow oak water oak

holly dogwood hickory pine.

Silent stalwart souls.

Deep roots. Worlds

encased in bark

past our ken.

They possess their own

occult names.