The Old Tree

There near the southern end of the county

through the back of the fen in the middle of her world,

near the Old Poste Road between the wood rail fence

and the ancient twin paths a skip apart,

there sits the Old Tree,

massive in her breadth and beauty,

green and speckled with light.

The Old Tree had seen some hundred-and-forty springs,

so many nights beneath the stars, 

days under the sun and the rain,

dressed in mist of fog and bathed in crusting snow,

soaked in rays and caressed by winds.

In those years she heard many a song, many a story,

only in part as the wanderers went by,

but never silence as there was always 

something with something to say.

This being a part of the woods

where such passings were rare and unnoticed,

not what moved her most in her fray,

she needed not such passings

in the passing of her days.

For a tree is not a lonely thing,

never alone in nature's worldly way.

She is where she has always been in truth and spirit,

never wanting, never yearning, never astray.

Always alive and and joyous for its yet another day,

and never you mind come what may.

She knows the friends of hill and dale,

the fawn, the mother, the sheep and the lamb,

the buzzing and the furred,

the small and the large things that shadow beneath her wings,

that take comfort in her nooks and bends,

between her roots and soil that ground her 

to the fey and wonderous way.

She is silent and yet sings a song not for you,

but for the faint rustling of her branches and leaves.

She is not here for you, in so many ways,

she gives you life all the same.

You honor her with leaving her be.

She will be here long after your journey is done,

be sure to be kind and gay.

Her memories will always stay within her rings,

not thoughts nor visions of your life,

untold through all those eons of springs,

as she is bound to nature's strife,

you but a passing thing.

The Old Tree is young though she ages,

an immortal in spirit in these woods.

To live forever is not why she lives beyond the days.

She only knows dying if brought to her,

or fate overcomes her in nature's time,

until then she stands radiant and divine,

near the southern end of the county,

by the road at the edge of the fen,

living beyond your days.