Aged Branches

The trees I loved when I was small

still stand though time reclaimed it all.

Their bark is cracked, their branches thin,

but memory still lives within.

They watched me fall, they watched me flee,

yet never stopped believing me.

They taught me truth through every ring:

that loss still grows, and growth still clings.

God carves His stories in our grain,

not in our ease, but through our pain.

And when I lay beneath their arms,

I felt forgiven by their charms.

The roots remembered not the fall,

but how I stood through it at all.