Carya Illinoensis

O the depth of creation within a single tree!
Bear witness to the full, deep, branch-fraught timbre,
Tracing her graceful sweep into the feathered sky.
Sit, neck folded, thinking oneself beneath her smoke-like, time-placed frame,
As the ripple of a thought finds its way from beneath this, life’s loam-filled stage,
And rises, vast and rumbling, from somewhere beneath your quiet earth-strewn perch.
Into the mind falls the simply-carved vision of the vast, hidden half of her hourglass;
That, like her poet-born brother, fills the heart’s eye with wonder
At the woefully limited scope of its own age and vision.
Like the self-woven plight of we simpleton farmers of the earth,
Who orbitedly cast for ourselves roles of the crouchers
Far below the trunk-raised heights of the truly blessed,
All the while daily ignoring the ground-covers roots,
The twisted veins of the hope-starved that lie beneath us.
Great storm wrinkled maiden, your Maker knew well his craft
When He spilled your mighty arms from His heart.
It was He who filled your rough pages with soft, brown Light,
That we, the hate-blinded children of the dust,
Might bask in your within subtle glow.