Ode to Trees

You are extraordinary,

The way you golden with change,

And discard incredible beauty

to prioritize rest.

Growing strength in community,

your fall-robed leaves mingle,

as if proximity was in creation.

You welcome the labor of construction

in the feather-lined bassinets you cradle

Till flight.

You endure.

Over and over and over again.

Storms will shape you,

Floods with shift you,

Lightning will threaten you,

But you are aflame because of the crown woven in your branches every autumn

And because of the lifelines found in soil,

Shaped like synapses, ignited by fungi.

You sing with the wind,

Slumber with twilight.

You are shelter contained by art

That gifts oxygen for the trust

That we will reciprocate in breath.

Oh mighty oak,

Dancing aspen,

Noble pine,

Sweetest maple,

Protective redwood,

Glamorous dogwood,

You are grounding and the spotlight

In one.

You paint sunlight green, and

Redesign mountain sides,

In artistry that is universal.

Never did I know a more sacredness

In a tree.

Holly Madden

Read "Ode to the Trees" Poem