Oh mighty tree must you stand so tall?
Do you know how long I have yearned to be near you?
To feel the touch of your skin against the weight of my heavy heart
Since the beginning of time
I have grown accustomed to your beautiful boughs and gentle swaying leaves
I have sat amongst the clustering of your youth
You have protected me against tyranny, hatefulness and shame
Coveted my innocence
Shielding me against preposterous wars based on conflicting religious ideologies
Like the soldier standing erect in a gaze which holds no promise of immortality,
You wilt in the sun against her gaze
Knowing the heat of the day will bring slumber when
night falls and when the moon trapezes across the tapestry of your skin you shine
For you have the sustenance of Mother Nature as a protectorate and the soldier has a loaded gun
Your aching branches hover and protect the flurried winged ones and the dusty trailing nut seekers
Whilst the soldier’s veins bleed an unrelenting sorrow for the innocence of life once taken
Only once
Your vivid beauty, your presence for which words can hardly describe makes pastures of nothingness gape in awe
And for those who come to stand under you or lie quietly at your roots beneath the skies you welcome with
unabandoned love sovereignty and truth
But forgiveness is the hollow in your chest
A place of your sacred heart
For those mankind who have abandoned, misused, and condemned
Your heart lies heavy but does not lie still nor does it whimper
It listens to the winds of time stir the remembrance of chaos and calamity
It beckons us all to see the gnarly craggy faces and spines of human flesh that hung to rot never knowing the peace you gave
from within your own hollowed heart
Mighty tree, I see you as my savior, my saint, my holy one.
For I am blessed to hold your woven earthen rounds of time
And I will speak softly to the angels when they come
May I always remember you, Oh Mighty Tree,
for your presence, beauty and your sound
Let freedom ring!
~Nancy Chuda
Oak Pasture Santa Ynez
August 12, 2010
