I sat in an obscure local library
for a second it reminded me
of an assisted living facility
a kind of base camp
I counted them – six distinctly
those senior men with battle scars
and sun spots that were earned
on family trips now forgotten
each had a story and a long life  
almost gone now they sat quietly
inside their gray hollow heads
a few had discolored Goodwill hats
that nobody else wanted
cheap and tired looking
slurping up the papers news
three inches from their **** face,
they were clotted blue
while the chapel asylum
and town monument
across the street beheld us
there under the same beautiful sky
my green and brown bivouac
suddenly raged about my own
circular inventory
that will come
like theirs when what is left
of my forest is no different than
anyone else.