After the End

My daughter died suddenly in 2023, at age fifty-three, of a brain hemorrhage. I scattered some of her ashes in Lassen Volcanic National Park, a place I had backpacked into and birded for forty years-my daughter had been there with me-that burned in 2021. Since my daughter's death, I have felt, at times, that too much of what I loved was gone. The psychologists now say the last stage of grief is not acceptance, but meaning. I'm still working on it.

tires checked

coolers, tents, flashlights

check, check, check

and the box of ashes . . .

her last camping trip

in the photo

chiaroscuro trees and shadows

trying to imagine

shades of green

before the fire