Dorothy Gilbert From The Yosemite Poems 1. A List Grasslight, ponderosashine, greylighted skin of old ponderosa. Ponderosacity, streets, roads, alleys, paths, liedownplaces, inside the tight young cones, inside bracts, in among cindercity barkflakes Day's-eye, pregnant milkweed, asterdance, blue or dried; black oak singing as the sun plays warm music on its lighted leaves Redberry bearscat, polkadot bearscat, log orange as bearscat, long tree rotting into groundsoil, black earth holding the night, breastfeeding the night, night in the day's warm soil feeding on rootsearch, rockbreak, bonerot, eye and brain and fur rot, milk of rot and root, Night nourished and growing beneath our feet. *** 2. The Forest of Hands Hands of the black oak, playing the light. Hands of the ponderosa, a brush for the wind's voice. Hands of cedarfroth and alderfeather, hands      of cones fatfingered, sugar and pitchfingered,      thin and brittle brokenfingered; ham-handed sugar pine cones two feet long. Tight-fisted cones; fists full of berries; old thistle-fists; grassy hands; hands full of seeds; long blue lupine hands testing the air. Under the earth old hands in pieces, bones      in the dark dirt. *** 3. Foresta Creek The cold grasps me. It is in me, moving with me; we are a double creature contending, we keep even if I keep moving. Face down, I swim in soft amber, over sand, mica, greenish stones, black rocks; under boulders, through colder shadows. Face up, I let the current carry me under the alders' green steps, levels, planes of light. The cold loves my hair, eats my face, makes sharp edges in my blood. Face down again I fight the current, work my shoulders, win my way to the sun. On land I am the warm bored victor.

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