I want to be the bent pine
above the water sewage
trail hidden past electric wire
towers at university’s edge,
at the tips of many tender
fingers too clean to touch
the leaning trunk with leafless age, naked
branches under metal clouds.
It bows deeply to those
who climb over iron gates to leave
their tracks in muddy hollows,
who bridge small rivers between
them and the divine wild,
who find the tree unlike the rest
beautiful. I’d be thankful to be
in the presence of such gods,
I’d be humbled to be noticed.
-------------------------------------------------------
I wrote this poem on Thanksgiving day after taking a walk down an oft unused nature reserve off of Elon University with my brother, brother-in-law, and his two kids. I saw a bent tree and thought - now there's a tree that sticks out from the rest. It wasn't really special, except for its position and the way it leaned over the path. But I got a chance to see it because of going off the beaten path. And then I wanted to write a poem about it, so I took out a pen and wrote on my arm "I want to be the bent pine..."
No comments:
Post a Comment