From a particular tree shaped like a bear, I’ve been watching for over 30 years——

What bear tree knows:

Bear tree wears sunset daily
Bear tree stares out over the bay to keep watch
Bear tree is the bay watcher
Bear tree saw the 60’s and long before
Bear tree had kids smoking pot and writing poems beneath his branches
Bear tree survived the pandemic
Bear tree saw the city become a ghost of herself
During Covid. But even before no one could afford to be here,
He overheard.
Bear tree sat alone when the Mission district went silent
Bear tree sat with the city of homeless in all the parks
Bear tree remembers the charcoal circles that distanced us when under
Shut down. Bear tree as a kid can even remember the deployment after Pearl Harbor. And his dad Big Bear Tree remembered all the gold rushers frenzy
His Father those who lived here before the Europeans brought chocolate and
Their love for gold. Baby bear tree has heard the long story
And keeps looking out over the bay this evening in a pastels glory
Standing on a fog line that seems to never end.
Bear tree is looking bare these days, but has a little girl-she may
Have moved across the Bay to get a different angle, or….
She’s run off somewhere like those kids in the 60’s, he thinks-
She stood watch with him for eras…
But she’ll return to see the rest of the story, he’s sure
Tonight bear tree is watching the elections, and hoping for the best
So he can keep watching over this bay.
I met bear tree only 30 years back, and he got taller over time
But now he looks thin, but determined as they say. Bear tree won’t die
He told me. My leaves will just blow into the bay, and my skeleton
Become art, before the great fires comes
“Bigger than men’s wars,” he says.
But he’ll keep watching, he told me.