LETTER ON LONGLEAF TO MATTHEW OLZMANN

by Tobi Kassim

A knife is a kind of memory– What do you reach for
to outline your place in the clear-cut swaths of our history.

From your letter I gather
you hear the majesty of old trees as a call
To contemplate the wonders of nature inside yourself. I hear
the knotted problem of evil’s
tongue wash up on the shore. What slaughters
the trees have been forced to witness, and nature’s resilience.
I feel the reverence that you assume, but like the too-close
exhale of a lost future at my neck. The fullness
we logged trampled to make this remnant a preserve.
I believe the blood of all living things speaks
a language that places severe pressure on our self
regard. It sounds like the history
of trees screaming under our fires. I searched
In that longleaf’s sap for a trace of the other 85
million acres of its family trees that disappeared.
I saw only myself, my hand in the diminished canopy
through which the sky is now visible. That dark must
have been unremitting. How often have I seen beauty
and, failing to comprehend it, desired a piece I could keep.

I like hearing how this hobbled world still sings
so clearly in your bones. I found the sole
ancient that escaped our kind and it hissed
in me. What if the longleaf’s survival was enough
to underwrite all the odes we scratch on paper. I dealt
my most harmful blows almost without thinking. In that bark
I could never refute the accusation. I revealed
My name in sap to confess. I didn’t dare hope
my letters would lead you to find me but
Now I count it as sweet as forgiveness. I reached out
to touch the world and it widened
my complicity into relation.

Tobi Kassim was born in Ibadan, Nigeria, and has lived in the United States since 2003. His poems have been published or are forthcoming  in the Volta, The Brooklyn Review, Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, The Kenyon Review, Zocalo Public Square, Four Way Review and elsewhere. His chapbook, Dear Sly Stone, was published by Spiral Editions. Tobi was a 2021 Undocupoets fellow, received support from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and is an associate poetry editor for West Branch.