Living Tree Poetry

I bemoaned the lack of things.
A certain symmetry, or correct aligning.

A certain youthful vignette
from memory.

A certain flush, a just bloomed,
rounded, skin of apple –

a store-bought peach,
blemish-free.

I bemoaned the silver thread.
White-water crest of waves

through a river
long and dark,

its only shine now
caught under starlight.

But God said,

‘time –
it’s immaterial’

Hair that grays,
skin that sets in its downward pattern.

Eyes that look out
from tissue paper wings.

Whose definition
in the end matters –

determines the rightness of our beings,
the thing that defines us as ourselves?

We might bemoan the ending of things,
the turning of the seasons.

The certain ease
in which we faced the day.

But now, in the slowing down,
the reflective passage of Autumn,

we see how the seed
became the tree, and the leaves then falling.

And we might bemoan our frames,
our many irritations –

but in the tree’s skeleton
under the grey leaden sky,

its limbs contrasting
against the light,

is the shape still of the seed,
the beauty of a youth outgrown.

So much so that I cannot bemoan
the ending of anything.

For whose determining
sets beauty’s worth?

And usefulness is always God’s decision.
Energy gives way to wisdom.

And even here yet in the mulch,
God is working, planting.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
March 2020