It is time to be a tree.
Time to leave this broken world
no human hand can mend.
I’ll take up nature’s therapy:
be silent, still and

send down roots so strong and deep,
no catastrophe can breach,
or hateful speech may reach
But what kind of tree?
No, not that ornamental cherry:

so beloved of the block-paved many
made mute by pink.
And never that gnarled old cooker; too
scabby and raddled to even think,
and much too pigeon-crabby.

An acer might do, but not
if condemned to a pot
And that willow, so soothing and healing
and gently appealing:
yet too lachrymose, and too squat.

I’ll go instead to the library,
with that monumental sequoia close by.
And from an open window,
watch it soar into a feathery cirrus sky;
beyond all book-bound understanding.

A cathedral nature made:
its copper trunk and shelving naves and
transepts; its thrusting spires arrowing
up to heaven.
I will step out and start to climb.