Among Driftwood

Trees haven't come here to die.

They've done that in other forests, on other coasts, having lost their leaves and their bark and come ashore by themselves on a five-mile sand spit.

Branches and split logs, upended stumps, roots in the wind, and in one small cove, someone with nothing better to do it with has built a shack, then abandoned it— a doorway, but no roof, accidental windows, no hope of a foundation. It's already slumping back to what it was like a sandcastle.

These parts of trees have surrendered and been washed clean of imperfections. They won't be judged for punk knot, frost crack, pitch scab, or heart rot by lumbermen. The stump outside the door has ninety rings on its face and is looking good for more, regardless of contractors.

I remember shacks in the woods and shacks nailed up in trees and along bent railroad tracks, under new freeways, and up skid-road alleys where the impulse was to be half savage or halfway civilized, to be where no one could say, at least for a little while, Get out of there. Keep moving.

Go away. I crawl inside as if I'm coming home.