(The Oldest Living Organism Known to Humankind) Before the pyramids had seen the light of day, my wood began to slowly grow from bone-dry earth. It’s understood I’m older than the oldest redwood, baobab, or fir. Sol’s photons, whizzing through the chill of space-time, minister to all my chlorophyll. I may as well be on the Moon, for none but boffins know just where I stand, or I would soon be harmed by heedless tourists, over- joyed to say they’d seen my gnarly branches. Thriving in adversity, I’ve been through climate change, frigidity, high winds, and wars. I grace the granite and the dolomite atop this rocky face where marmots, bighorn sheep, and horses roam. My dotage gives no pine nuts to Clark’s nutcracker — a crow-like bird which lives a life of bustle, caching seeds, existing for a breath — while I, who’s aged five thousand years, am nowhere close to death.