The Tree
The Tree
In some woods one of the trees —
Nothing very remarkable about her —
Decided to leave. No pun intended.
She was a long time pulling her roots up,
Like a woman on a bus gathering her bags.
Wrenched them up out of the ground,
Then shook the dirt off them like Jesus
Told his disciples to do when leaving
A house where they hadn’t been made welcome.
Except she had been made welcome.
If not there, amongst her kind, then where?
She made her way through the crowd.
Hard as she tried to keep it together,
She kept dropping green leaves and seeds too
Immature to sprout, like somebody
Being a mess at a show, trying to
Carry a triangle of pints in two hands.
The others leaned this way and that
To make room, grumbling grouchily.
She told herself not to mind.
Were she to lose heart, she’d have to
Put roots down amongst strangers.
Nor could she ever find the place
She’d left, even if she wanted to.
No choice then but to keep going
Towards where the light was stronger.
Days after she’d set out, she came to the edge.
Had anyone been watching, they would have
Seen a tree step out of the woods,
Its roots scuttling over the ground
Like the tentacles of an octopus.
She was very tired now, very thirsty.
Her leaves were wilting and yellowing.
She’d lost a lot, like a woman losing
Her hair. She had to put roots down soon,
Or else faint and fall over for a farmer
To find and buck up and burn.
She climbed a hill and only when
She reached the top did she look back
At the woods she’d been part of before,
No less whole for her not being there,
Then with a sigh sunk her roots down
Into the sweet virginal ground.
She stands there still, on a hill south
Of Scales Mound, Illinois.
Many have stopped to admire her,
A tree where it seems no tree should be,
While a few, the saddest amongst us,
Think her the saddest tree we’ve ever seen.