Note from the road to Don-Sainghin – August 2026

I used to know a Don.
Old guy, always was, 'til he died.

Stopped aching and creaking.
Then he might as well've been young again.

That's a way to say it. The absence felt.
As if youth were a state of non-being more than anything else.

Don sure knew a lot about non-being.
In New Zealand as Kathy and Dad and all the others floated back home.

We were all born into that thin soup, floating,
steaming up, then gradually weighed down. Impressed back into the earth.
The knob turning on the wood clamp.

On trees you can see it. The weight of all the seasons. Growing taller, and denser too.
Branches start to sulk with it.
The wind doesn't catch so much after awhile.

If there's one thing about Don, it's that he loved chopping down trees. More than anyone I know.
Out by his cabin way off in the Tacoma woods. Right up 'til the end.

I never saw him out there. Though I bet Sebastian did. Before he cut himself down.
We heard the fall. Felt the knob turn.

And I hope too that Dad held that axe.
How it must've felt to bear the weight of it in hand. To tear through pulpy flesh.

Rest in peace, Don.
You dense old leaf of a man.