The Seat of an Old Tree

Sitting all alone

the remains of a once-grand old tree

whose earthly powers

rooted deep in the planet’ s core

could never save it

from the dust-made creatures that cut it down.

All that bark,

a glorious and uneven skin,

torn to shreds as grass

become a mulch splattered in a honey-sweet sap.

Time passes in solitude

and the shreds of a generations-old body

eventually become burial dirt

though the grave still breathes of life

from fledglings who gather to dance atop a lonesome stump

as well as the descendants

of the entities who turned the birthplace of a forest into

the solitary headstone of a plain graveyard.

Still, such an existence is not as dark

the wood of this ancient thing once was

for there is much yet for the steward

of the memory of the land to bear witness to

and perhaps tell

the seeds blown in by winds that call for the birth

of saplings and blossoms.