My son looms stretched beneath the redwood trees

Black Irish Black American Native American

history of foster care surging through his blue veins

like the sap steadfast in these ambassador giants

stalwart in the ancient fog here in our NorthWest territory

long before Columbus sailed and conquistadors conquered

there was peace in the forest and salmon in the seas

2000 yrs ago (the pain washed by so many rains)

2000 yrs old (the blood and the salt, topsoil sliding away away

salmon lusting to find home find home)

(and now I've made him Jewish and now his father has made him Asian)

6 ft 4 (struggling to grasp 10th grade geometry)

arms wingspread like branches

His curls buzzed close to his head O

(his lovely and beautiful boy head) O

beneath a halo of that fog beneath the limbs' lasting embrace

O.

— Stephanie Silvia