A bristlecone pine may not be as impressive at first as a beautiful blue spruce or a majestic fir. They are small, wiry, gnarly trees that cling to dry, rocky places other evergreens wouldn’t deign to try to survive in. But they cling on. And on. And on. They grow twisted as embodiments of wind. Among their ranks are some of the oldest trees on Earth. Some alive today in the American west were living when Jesus of Nazareth strode the planet. So I am pleased to have my poems included in a journal of the western US called Bristlecone. The editors, Joseph Hutchinson, Jim Keller, Sandra S. McRae, and Murray Molding, have generously published two of my poems in the September 2022 issue and have accepted four for an upcoming issue. Here’s the first two.