Poetry

Cabin Thoughts

           1984, 2nd working 11/22/02

If I could choose to be a tree,

A birch is what I’d choose to be!

***

After my childish tantrum,

Of screaming into my pillow,

I lay exhausted upon my bed.

My eyes quietly focusing

Upon an old birch tree,

Just outside of my window.

How steadfastly you guard my cabin!

Your skin torn and blistered,

In the summer sun.

You stand, unaware of your fate.

Accepting it in painful silence,

While I wallow in my own self pity!

Your children are gathered about your feet.

With backs once arched and twisted from the spring snows,

They now stand erect in the afternoon sun.

Oh Great Birch, tell me your secrets of renewal!

Where comes your strength?

To hold back those who push in upon you?

Your old bark tears in the wind.

Fluttering gray and white hinges,

Reveal in flashes, the new bark below.

Your multi-colored leaves of fall

Reflect only memories

Of what was.

While you gather sap for what is to come.

In like manner,

There is hope growing behind my own pain.

Waiting to come forward, as soon as, the past falls away.

There is new life, beneath.

Left unblemished by the world,

Or by some lover’s knife.

Whisper your secrets to me in the wind.

And tell me the source of your strength.

So that at such time, will I rise up

And begin, my journey again!

                             copyright: Rendo 2004