My daughter died suddenly in 2023, at age fifty-three, of a brain hemorrhage. I scattered some of her ashes in Lassen Volcanic National Park, a place I had backpacked into and birded for forty years-my daughter had been there with me-that burned in 2021. Since my daughter's death, I have felt, at times, that too much of what I loved was gone. The psychologists now say the last stage of grief is not acceptance, but meaning. I'm still working on it. tires checkedcoolers, tents, flashlightscheck, check, checkand the box of ashes . . .her last camping trip in the photochiaroscuro trees and shadowstrying to imagineshades of greenbefore the fire David C. Rice has been writing tanka for thirty-five years and was the editor of the Tanka Society of America's triannual journal, Ribbons, from 2012-2019. He has written seven other tanka books, four co-written with other poets/artists, including one about the climate calamity, as well as a book about birding. He lives in Berkeley, California, and works as a clinical psychologist.
