Hear live first rendition here
Once the teenage tree
Reaching out,
Stretching
its branches,
Full of succulent leaves.
A host
for nesting birds
On their
way to other branches,
in a cacophony of cicadas.
And insects,
crawling,
Being hunted by birds and other insects.
Caterpillars
engorging themselves in leaves,
Wrapped in cocoons and falling to the ground
to metamorphose into moths, butterflies.
This canopy
of dense deep green
Attracting
dwellers underneath
In need
of rest,
In need of shade on sunny days.
Through seasons
of thickening trunk,
Withstanding
wind and rain, and thunderbolts,
Gather into
a forest,
Seeding soil
carried in brooks,
Around a
village through its tributaries.
Until the
darkness past shooting stars
Reaches an
apex of life,
Strained by
obsessions,
Depleted
of its qualities,
Fissures
forming,
Cracks
splitting it open
As sap, harvested,
drizzles down its bark
Into hollowed
termite housing,
Till branches,
brittle,
Begin to
flail in frail health,
Frozen and
abandoned through too many winters.
A last
fall foliage pleads to onlookers:
“See me
for the last time!”
Alas,
naked and grotesque,
But a holy
tree to the elders
That
shared the journey
From childhood
looking upward,
To evenly
aroused wisdom of longevity,
When countable
branches remain,
And roots
become strained,
Until the
last cone bursts open,
In flames,
Of inter-generational pain.
September 1, 2020
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Copyright © 2020 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved
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