Whose woods these are I think I know

my friend Candy

posted her
Not for sale

sign here

ten months before she died

i should have known,

that evening of our twentieth high school reunion

when she didn’t show up

and no one knew her address nor number

that I could have looked behind

the ancient beech and oak

on

the banks of the Delaware

on Riverside Drive

The Trenton historian said

that that oak was the

Last Rebel Standing

one of the few remaining trees

that witnessed

General Washington and his troops crossing the river

for the Battle of Trenton

the birth of our  nation

Little Candace, with her five year old clairvoyance

picked the rebel tree for her rebel heart

hid there, placed her Jean Nate scent there

And cried her eyes against the ancient tree’s arms, it’s shedding bark absorbing her sweat

She didn’t just die in her sleep in an inner city tenement

she is there—within the wings of  the guardian owl
sentinel of the lone canoe