Good Company

Bury me near a bristlecone pine

I'm an extrovert;

I need company.

I want company for eternity

and stories of rain and snow

and dinosaurs astronauts and emperors.

And we can laugh about the curse:

the tree is old

and I will already be dead.

But alive, too, in it.

Bury me near a bristlecone pine

but an elder who has already survived

a nuclear bomb.

There's no better tombstone

for my generation.

Knotty, misshapen,

hardscrabble and discounted

but recording everything,

every slight,

no matter how small.

Inspired by: "The Past and the Future of the Earth's Oldest Trees" by Alex Ross.

Bristlecone Pine by Ross Stone, Unsplash