There's a Wolf Pine by the river

That's older than the rest

Designated by city fathers

To bear some kind of witness

There sent to a little Boll Weevil

To deform the root

You grew up defined as

The reflection of your youth

And in June of 1816

A volcanic cloud's black shadow

Reached New England via Asia

And dropped 3 feet of snow

Every cow silent in pasture

Every crop failed by degrees

As if in some hemisphere reversal

You can read it in its wooden memory

You can read it in its leaves

If you go back, deeper in that circumference

Before you even were a dream

The Abenaki looked up, gulped, and wondered

If they had the proper offerings

Go and count the purple rings of Saturn

Or of your ringed and wounded heart

But there ain't no long division

That could ever keep these two things apart