Giant Arborvitae, Smokey Point, WA

Nowhere near the map, we stop so Bob can piss
and smoke somewhere north of Smokey Point,
nearly half way up to Darrington

I need neither, yet gravitate to the historical
monument called 'Giant Arborvitae'

I ask how to say it: Arrh-bor-vi-tae, Latin,
meaning ornamental evergreen tree native
to North America and Asia, producing scaly bark.

This one is twenty feet wide, once upon a time
two-hundred feet tall, that is, before a farmer
cleared it from his land with hungry flames,

bark is pitch black, curvaceous, graffiti scrawled,
modern hieroglyphics of so-and-so loves whoever,
or 'I' was here.

I walk inside it, look up, feel loose, yet centered.

It was well over a thousand years old, touched
by a million hands in more than enough centuries.

I think that this is proof of the one continent theory of
pre-evolution.

Bob says: you ready?
I leave it behind.