Paul Willis

Smoke Signals

—Sequoia National Park

From the switchbacks above Soda Creek,
I can see green smoke blowing across
the Chagoopa Plateau. What gives?

A forest fire in ecologically sensitive
colors, fit for a national park?
A new wilderness pope, just declared

by a conclave of bear bishops?
The answer comes with a brush of my hand
against a pine branch by the trail.

Not wildfire, not the solemn choice
of His Holiness by ursine cardinals,
but lodgepole pollen loosed on the wind,

clouds of fertility crossing the earth,
incense released to the gods
and given back to the trees that burn it.

Paul Willis grew up in the Willamette Valley, worked as a mountain guide in the Cascades and Sierra Nevada, obtained his graduate degrees at Washington State University, and taught as a professor of English at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, where he still lives. He has returned to the Northwest to serve as an artist-in-residence at North Cascades National Park. Willis has published seven collections, the most recent of which is Somewhere to Follow (Slant Books, 2021). Individual poems have appeared in Poetry, Ascent, Writer’s Almanac, and the Best American Poetry series. Learn more at www.pauljwillis.com.