Jacob used to come over to my parents' farm, sometimes just to climb the blue silo. He'd sit at the top for hours, just thinking. He always wanted to take his guitar at the top, but he never did. |
He loved the dead tree in the old pasture lane. We'd talked about building a tree house in it fifteen years ago. We never got around to it. |
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Our horizon stretches away forever. |
We grew up five miles away from Fort Drum, the home of the 10th Mountain Division, the most-deployed unit in the U.S. Army. |
He sang: here comes my friend, the crow he's my only friend, you know and he just sits there in his tree and he just sits there, looks right back at me. Jacob had a fascination with birds. |
The bonfire pit is dead now. |
A tree grew up next to the original bonfire pit. Last year, I accidentally burned half of it down. |
looking in the direction of Jacob's old house. |
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painful beauty. |
death mixed within. |
They circle, not vultures, but close enough. |
The original bonfire pit slowly fades. |
Cigarette butts left over from my summer of mourning under stars. |
Sometimes he'd chase the cows through the fields. He played the guitar for them. |
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shadow of the artist. |
driving to the cemetery. |
Sandy Hollow Cemetery, Philadelphia, NY. |
corner of the family gravestone. |
dead evergreen in the peripheral forest. |
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my apartment: my addiction. |
stark shadows. |
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