WHY

Spring flowers are coming out in my little corner of the world.

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New Zealand National Poetry Day, 23rd August, 2019. The ageing tree: the ageing self.

 

One Third & All & Near 84

As roots trickle away into soil: mystery in each branching link.

Some run upward from here; here where we see what branches

out and down. Some go slowly up; all angles be gentle, the trickle

of weaving continue. The largest branch with no more to tell

than the smallest twig. Sheddings:  fall away, yet part of the whole.

Lovely and gentle, twisting slight: the non influence of wind or

weather, of knowing always this was in continued relationship

so that below soil confides. Such as below is above.

 

I could say I want to range further, higher; away from fibre

to green leaf or blue sky, but here at the fracture of what is

before me, the below and above of power and beauty: this is

the assurance of time and age. That I feel it; knowing its privilege

the one third of the tree and me.

 

Benita H. Kape (c) 22.8.2019

I sit with others at the foot of trees

Thank you to Susan Budig for suggestions re the penultimate sentence of the first stanza.