POETRY | NATURE | SELF REFLECTION

What Should I Do With A Tree?

Compare it to me?

Photo by Anita Denunzio on Unsplash

The white pines
rise up, each year
higher, canopy wider
they yearn for the sky
til they block out mine
an ever-upward march
of growth — as my own
yet should I equate this tree to me
or should I leave it a tree?

Should I leave it be?
(the tree)
for all the rivers of rain
(falling free)
absorbed
piped upward to every
spindle, every needle
the final drops of October, November
stored in its trunk
held through winter
the freezing frost
white glimmer, hoar frost
on its shoulders
linger.

Days of wintery suspension
then Fall meets Spring
for Spring needs the Fall
reservoir
rain now flows
naturally,
upward,
through its branches,
as if upward could ever be natural
(a greening tree — speechless.)