Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Overshadow

Thirteen years a sapling
too weak to fight, too tough to kill;

thirteen years a young tree
struggling to stand;

thirteen years of bearing
confiscated fruit.

The roots knot
under the wall and pull;

the slow lean of tree thighs
splits the stone;

in the shade moisture
gathers, freezes, cracks.

When the wall falls
no one is surprised but the tree.

6 comments:

Kathleen said...

I loved watching this happen in your poem, and the little surprise at the end! I imagine this might be happening in my neighbor's backyard some time in the next 13 years...to a fence, not a wall.

Zhoen said...

Oh. My.

jo(e) said...

I love the ending.

deb said...

Lovelovelove this poem.

(Been meaning to ask: if your new/future home has need/want of an Oregon white oak sapling, I've got several candidates for you to choose from. Can help plant, too. Will deliver. The mama tree & squirells left more projeny in need of homes. <3)

marly youmans said...

Once again I'm thinking you have a sonnet template in the brain! Like that final couplet twist, too.

Interesting to live with these insistent green creatures. I have a poem about the birch tree that grew up inside an apple stump in our back yard. My children thought it a fairy tree.

Jayne said...

Oh, I'm going to be watching my trees more closely.

This had such a nice, soft rhythm/pace to it. Lovely. :)