She is the largest tree I have seen
and the center of her carved body now
is the place from which the people were born.
From this mighty center,
thin as it was in the beginning
the tree rings radiate out. Now she is carved,
oh legs, feet all now with an ancient and powerful standing
on the circles of years
that have gone out from that first narrow center.
In those rings,
are years of rain and drought,
too many to count.
The ice age is there,
and the year volcanic ash was thrown down,
dark ring in all the light
and, yes, the next cold years.
The people of the map came after that
so I remember the year of chewed bones,
snapped marrow,
moonlit people hidden behind her,
unfinished amber that clarifies vision,
then those searching for gold,
and the many lives lost in waters
because of them.
And then the year the ancient man was found in a cave
with his seafaring items, hook, net, line,
the fish carved from tree woman’s limb
to win over the spirits in water.
Through science I know in all this time
the mammoth became smaller
in order to survive on that island up north
and even then this tree,
this great woman
existed,
created from the thin center
of origins standing now before me,
now greeting the people
who are coming as in the old stories to see her,
humans only half-formed.