My Giving Tree

Only a tree

“I am certain”, the tree said,”you only loved my fruit, and mistook your love of the sweet juice for a love of me”.


-Oh but you only bear your fruit in the fall. I also love your tall, broad canopy from beneath which I picked the fruit.

-Of course those fruit started out as tiny blooms, full of color to blind the sun, and flowing with scents to swim in.

-Or then there are your soft, luminous leaves, glinting in the sun, dancing in the wind, cooling my brow in the stifling blanket of summer.

-Only know that I also love your branches, familiar to my childhood swinging, naked and bare in winter, opening new views to the horizon, uncluttered by old litter.

-Oddly the rough and tough bark, rippled and chiseled, I also love, for its uniqueness and protective tortoise-shell-strength.

-Oblivious to your aging, I admire your anchored roots gripping the ground more deeply each day.

-Obliquely I look at other trees, and recall these things I love about you, my tree.


-
(in homage to the author of the Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein, and the early Christmas references I am seeing in poetry blogs, see The Walking Man)
Photo by Christine McGuire, Bristlecone Pine Tree, California, the oldest living thing we see with the naked eye....