Taught By Trees
Going out on a limb
The smell of the tall-pine forest brings peace.
Riding storms at
the top of a cottonwood
(a crows-nest for the desert pirate)
is freedom for a child.
Even dead, there is inspiration
and power,
even
a sort of life
in the still reaching branches.
Cooling,
resilient,
home for birds and beasts.

Bent,
broken,
burned,
cut,
yet never truly conquered.
The spirit of the tree, speaking to the spirit in me
even brings
imaginings of eternity.
— — — —
Dana Sanford
2020
Inspired and written imperfectly for Timothy Key and Charles Roast in response to the prompt of “this tree”.