Living Tree Poetry

We must be patient with our days.
The ground’s prepared and then by all appearance
lies fallow as an empty field
under water and rain,
before the farmer has a crop for harvesting.

And the woman making bread,
weighing all her elements,
kneads with patience,
allowing the yeast to ferment,
kneading again, that the dough will rise.

There are steps for sowing, reaping, gathering.
Measurements for the science of baking,
for the makings of flour, water, salt, yeast,
to merge and change,
become something else.

And if the farmer works
to keep the birds from his seed,
and the baker selects a warm place for his dough,
so won’t the angels, for us, clear the way forwards,
sweeping the road.

We must then wait patient within our days,
which sometimes appear to stretch
as a field out into oblivion,
under a sky bleak and
rains returning in their season.

But there is nothing wholly quiet about
the minutes stretching, collecting,
the hours multiplying as grain in a field,
when there are elements in the mix for our
establishment,

readying themselves for appearance.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
November 2020