They don’t know exactly how old you are
because your massive chest is mostly hollow—
Too many voids, the park forester says, too few rings
to count inside—but you’re pushing three hundred
& look every day of it. You stood here before
Lexington was Lexington, before the old mill,
before the park became a park in the nineties.
Your long limbs stretch across the trail
with the help of crutches now, tall stiff poles
to rest your arms on so you won’t tip over in a storm
like your brother did a few years back. Walking sticks
or no, it’s a matter of time, but you’re still leafy
as hell with the biggest acorns in town. You’re not
going anywhere, anytime soon, but I figure
you’re lonely, the last of your kind. Some afternoons
I keep you company, resting on the bench at your feet,
two gnarly old soldiers telling war stories & shooting
the breeze. You know that I lost my brother too,
that my heart’s as full of voids, that my joints
are just as creaky when the nights get cold.
We’re equally subject to the gravity of the years
pulling us down, though neither’s in much of a hurry
to get there. Who can say, in the end, which of us 
will be the last one standing? I hope it’s you.