After a while,
I am tired of trees.
Not the woody-armed entity,
bigmouthed and knotty nosed,
that watches over our home.
Not the longstanding gathering
of trunk and twig, thick skinned,
evocatively named: Sycamore.
Black walnut. River birch.
Red maple. Not the resolute
cedar, meditative, still, impermeable,
apotheosis having long been
completed. They are actualized,
the Holy of Holies, fabled and
tangibly ancient. Unlike we,
awaiting our turn, reading
through watch tick and sand, now
come, now here, now somehow
gone, before we’ve reached the
finishing line. It’s that humble
word I’ve consistently heard
since the moment I learned
what memorizing meant.
What rote learning meant.
Stanzas made for reciting,
me in the back of the room
because I, too, was growing tall:
“I think that I shall never see,
a poem as lovely as a tree.”
I’d say the rest. Maybe even
I’d write more. But the words
will never last like roots, deeply
faithful to good earth, glorious
and grateful as boughs, finding
bits of heaven. Turning to heaven.
Simple, right? Memorable and
gracious. Perhaps I’ll stick with trees.
Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt, copyright October 11, 2024, all rights reserved
Posted in Katherine's Coffeehouse
