As Yet
We’ve all seen them standing, tall,
Yet leaning, strong, yet
vulnerable,
For they cling to the water’s edge.
What can we learn from them:
Their presence, their struggle,
Their boldness, firm, and unfailing,
Strong, thickly rooted in the mud?
How has time’s slow passage formed
them?
How have life giving waters,
Filled their roots, while washing
away
The very foundation those roots
grasp onto,
Grain by microscopic grain, piece
by unseen piece.
As dust to dust, the edge encroaches
slowly,
So slow, no motion is ever seen.
The leaving, the absence, captures
it completely,
A lone testimony to the delicate
cycle,
Exposing the unearthed limbs in
their fight
To hold on, and, so far, they have.
In the water their leaves have
gathered,
And slowly decompose into those
nutrients,
So by dying they make the clung to
mud,
As if it is all a fleeting attempt
to fill in
The waters, and build back the bank
Before it is all washed away. The
cost
Is just to let go of a little fragment
of life.
Can they die fast enough to save
their lives?
Such is the paradox they seem to
state,
In their autumnal fire-leafed
evensong,
And though the gyre keeps spinning,
In seasons of life and death, each
one
Leaves its ring. The thick ones represent
The winning years, of which there
have been many,
But with each the weight of the matter
grows.
How many thin rings in a row, lean
ones,
Will it take to increase the lean,
so much,
The whole tree falls? It hasn’t
happened
As yet. . .
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