The wood seems to love the grain it runs,
these 2 x 12 planks that floor the porch
of Paradise. Sun and rafter shadow
under the unmarked sky, late summer blue,
that holds its cloudless opening, devoted,
to the sun on white-ice, rock and snow
of Mount Rainier—say some, it’s Mount Tahoma
or plainly, God, to native reds who knew.

Say some of us, “We, too”: late afternoon,
presiding power holds all—a darting squirrel,
bird the size of a child’s closed palm,
ranging out to towns and states of humans
everywhere . . . their harmony upon
that axis turns. Summit coming down
in crash of waters’ nourishment of vasts,
we turn inside at last—Tahoma’s heart.