OWL PEAK
It was my mother’s father
in the green Studebaker pickup
that towed our Buick
out of Mill Creek in Fifty-five
who first named Owl Peak to me
and I ask her if she knew him,
old Indian woman with the story
born back then on the Cutler ranch,
as If I could peek through the years
to see the man with a man’s eyes.
Afraid to ask too much, I
touch gently a willow clavicle
as she remembers with surprise
and grins – running back across
the field to the forest of oaks
along the St. Johns, little girl
past the barn and the great Valley Oak
with four-foot rounds I split
for him when it laid down –
both looking up like children.
for Marie Wilcox