I better read a poem about death here,
it's called Escudilla Mountain.
And the reason why I'm familiar with this particular mountain,
which is the third highest peak in Arizona,
is that I've been working with others in the past five years
to try to stop Forest Service from logging it.
And all of that doesn't enter in the poem,
but it provides the reason why I happen
to be familiar with this particular mountain
in the White Mountains.
It's about people dying.
Escudilla Mountain.
The dead do not cry out in their sleep.
Instead, they lie there, thinking of their lives.
How they stood on curves, the serial sun pouring over them.
Holding their toys, looking at others.
And later, threw water from pans,
flashing the light from the windows of their hairy bark
cabins.
And lying there, turning things over, they change.
The flesh drops off.
A watery cheese.
A light seeping away into the soil.
But what remains, grows harder.
Colored teeth forming in geodes.
Until the blue eggs fade in their nests.
Until at the last, in a final struggle toward their friends,
their voices go out.