An Arbor Day Poem

For Trees on Tu B'Shevat

Your roots are literal and you

actually reach for the sky—

Each trunk is a capital “I”—

How peaceful it must be to be

first person singular figuratively!

Even one leaf banishes despair,

(metaphorically speaking, one strand

Of hair)--You never gray, you gold,

red, and brown; and, unlike ours,

season after season yours faithfully

comes back.  Fed by lifelines of

centuries-old, lithe and

organically willed-to-live veins,

leaves restore youth every spring.

Take a stand for challenged oaks

is not a command—Even when

gnawed during youth, yes, even if

crippled by long-since-dead deer,

oaks don’t need encouragement;

every one rises as high as it can.

Adult coiffures become canopies,

only 3% of sunlight reaches kids—

Yet saplings accept what they get,

and, most unlike us, never complain.

Tough love!  Yet If they received light

as they’d like, they’d grow too fast and

become deadly-thin.  I just read a book

(pages of tree flesh) that asserts roots

talk to each other via vast networks of

underground wires, fungi their go-betweens;

what do they say?  “Bagworms are

devouring us!  Constellate defenses,

neighbors!”  In one word: survive.

Choose life--Brothers, sisters, I am

a tree, you are a tree, long máy we

all flourish and seek sunlight yet!



This poem first appeared in The Deronda Review, Vol. 7, number 2