Living Tree Poetry

Your presence abides.
Like the rock
off which the water runs.

Your presence sits
as the birds flock near,
undisturbed.

Your presence lies surrendered
and therein finds its strength,
in undoing.

We ask questions
flung into the night,
dark –

asking,
which star to draw down
has the answer written?

But you sit
abiding,
a rock in the river running.

Your presence beckoning,
saying – ‘here,

leave your health,
leave your fears,
your poverty and need,

the sorrows
that threaten to overspill –
watch them fall, run away

with the river’s tumultuous flow –
watch only what is left here
standing –

the presence under all.’

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
June 2020