Oakledge

                                            —Burlington, Vermont

We search for stripped chimneys—manor
and bungalow, cabins named for presidents,

deserted or torched in the sixties.
Cliffs thick with pitch pine and wild roses

are not enough. We want the ruins,
brick hearths split by branch and thorn,

stone eye of this octagonal foundation
never blinking. Someone lived here,

stirring embers, releasing columns of smoke.
How long these monuments will stand,

what will come of iron vents where we crouch
in winter, the valves of our house

coughing dust in cold nights, we can’t know.
We kneel at this fireplace purring with hornets,

black throat piled with silk and cottonwood seed,
no match to strike in these woods, nothing to burn. 

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Thanks to Copper Nickel, where this poem first appeared.