That Tree

Tock tock, her feet hit the boulevard
by an invisibly dead lake
fluorescent Twinkles animate the water
from lights that make possible the urban
matters that keep man, so inhuman to itself.

It's her favorite playlist. Songs collected over
32 years, varied tongues, tempos, and talents
some of questionable taste, but they
keep her prancing, her spirit dancing
and then she is stopped dead in her tracks

The object that has stolen this moment
from her mind is a tree. Far off to the right
she is not used to seeing such broad trunks,
not in the middle of the city.
Such power it has, it makes her walk off
the path laid out by man for man, the grass
sinks under her shoes, softening her stride.

Her lips part to make room for all the
wonder her eyes cannot contain.
She just looks at this thing.
First from afar and then from as close
as one is permitted in the sanctum of a temple
magnificent, enchanting.
As she walks closer
to this beautiful being
the brainwashing sounds of the city have drowned away,
breath is becoming louder,
making her own life more audible to her ears
And perhaps to this deity.

It feels like walking into a cathedral.
sacred, still, solemn.
But incomplete,
as this gorgeous stump is just one pillar left standing
in the middle of an urban sprawl
that so deceptively hides the first vandalism
nay violence against life,
from the hands of man, by an axe
wood made enemy of wood.
life cannibalizing life,
in ignorance disguised as might.

I have heard the smallest unit of a forest is the forest.
This flake of a forest stands alone in perfection
as a commemorative statue,
to its former glorious family, alive but not whole.
Living, but alone.
Her hands touch markings that have inhaled more
history and air than her past seven generations on both ends of time.
She sits on the roots that spill out of the ground
her back to this silent deity as if wanting to undo a past
by turning up her eyes.

She looks up at the swaying majesty.
She prays without knowing. She prays without words.
Her tears pray with her too.
Help me. Teach me. Your way. Always.

This is the tree that inspired this poem.

This poem took birth while I was walking around Lake Meritte and came across a gorgeous tree in the dark, that divine meeting alchemized me like trees always do, and then this poem was the outcome of the potent alchemy.