Gratitude to the rain.
Gratitude to the sky.
Gratitude to the many tiny things.

What are we supposed to do? Arise
into cities, bloom and shed light?

It’s true, I don’t think much
about how my brothers live.
There they stand, gnarled
still offering softest green
in faithful bargain, to the sky.

Look how their limbs run with birds.

Every spring, their seedlings
begin among those fruits and flowers
that I intend for my small testimony
regarding connection.

It’s true, were I to let go, this city
lot would be treed again; every spring
all I tell the forest is, Not yet, please
friends, not yet.

Gratitude to the root.
Gratitude to the branches.
Gratitude to the certainty of trees.

Photo credit: SB TwoRivers