I long to see the great trees of the world:
Grand sequoias in northern California
Collasal in stature
Great with longevity, memory and history
Live oaks dripping with Spanish moss
In sluggish Louisiana bayous
Plumbing the murky waters
The slow-moving ebb and flow
The Chinese Gingko
Remnant of a reptilian age
Leaves shaped like the tail of a humpback
Distinctive in design, an oddity,
A standard all it is own
In the deserts of California,
The contorted shapes of a Joshua Tree
In the harshness of desert winds ascetic,
Into yoga postures, twisted
Hermits seeking enlightenment
The womanly white birches
Of the Green Mountains of Vermont,
In the spring, first to sprout new buds,
Graceful arrowhead leaves
Dazzling in the afterglow of fall
Flowing with the seasons, fluid in its changes
The evergreen Yew tree, grown weary,
Sloughing its outer bark,
From the inner core, a new tree arises
To stand In solitude, at the gates of an English graveyard
Trees hollow with age,
The heartwood vanishes
The widening girth
The toughening bark
Armor strong enough to bear
The weight of the tree
On the intertwined root plexus, I rest my limbs
Against the shaggy, peeling bark, I lean my back,
Motionless and mute,
Inhale the fresh forest scent,
Attuned to the mockingbird’s song,
Raise my eyes, heavy-lidded, heavenward,
Dissolve Into the crown of forest eaves,
The interspersed branches
Letting in fractured shafts of light
The trees extend downward and upward
Into the root dark deep
Into the fresh air
Finding the balance
In the dark
In the light