Your Tree

author’s note:

I think I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree.
         — Joyce Kilmer


YOUR TREE

To try to ease the pain of loss
I planted that sapling in your memory.

And as the tree grew
I recalled how
your arms kept reaching
upward and outward.
And how your heart
kept on rooting deeper down.

But then one afternoon
as I placed my hand on its thin trunk
I began to worry:
What if the tree caught
some strange disease?
Then I would lose you twice.

So I began to gather its seeds
and began to plant them
all over the yard
then all over the community.
And then beyond—
wherever I saw the need
for such a tree as yours.

So I’m comforted, knowing
your tree will live on
through the generations.

But I will live on too, won’t I?—
through the work
of planting these trees.
And the more I plant
the bigger my afterlife will be.

And so I continue to plant.


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