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Sonnets From Other Lives: Hiro
See that tree? The little alpine fir?
Planted that one back in '52.
Pruned it like one I saw on Rainier.
A history prof from the U.W.
needed a gardener & he hired me--
a part time student on the G.I. Bill
with a piece of German shrapnel in my knee.
My father taught me bonsai & I still
have his tools. Minidoka broke him down.
They took his store--sent me to Italy...
He’d say—I don’t have time for that crap now.
It was him I thought about pruning this tree.
I’d put a gnarled mountain fir in Laurelhurst
as a reminder—what it looks like to endure.