Broken Tree

Stand still please,

look and see,

the magic, and wonder

of my broken knee.

...

Did I say knee,

I meant to say tree.

Its rings, a gateway to its soul.

Its whole life spent watching

the garden of the great and bold,

good and pure, wretched and foul,

young and old with troubled bowel.

...

Gaze at its ring, kiss its ring?

Honour it. Cherish it.

Give it the reverence it's owed.

For standing when you sat, standing when you lay,

standing when you tended to this and that,

fed the children, worked your job, complained about the slog.

Standing when you were doing your thing,

late at night in the cyber world,

or while you worked, cheated,

snorted enough coke to make Elton John choke

while it stood and stood and waited

for anything, just anything and everything.

...

Never complaining, prostrating,

failing or falling, giving in or up.

No dirty deeds, just standing,

watching, photosynthesising.

Shadowing the garden where the dogs do their business,

where you wish you did the carnal business,

if only you had feelings of youthful abandonment.

...

Where it sheltered you in a freak shower from the heavens-

you waited under and lamented.

How little you pay attention to the gloriousness

of nature that surrounds you, me, us.

Score its epitaph in its rotted stump,

"the watcher was here, but who watched the watcher,

who did anything other than standing there, watching as the watcher fell?"

We all sighed, complained, when the council felled it,

as they took it down a size or two, to the stump that remains

with its roots still embedded in the ground beneath.

But, what did we learn?

...

The animals serenaded it, I'm sure,

with a silent and saddening ode,

a solemn and stirring elegy

to the watcher who stood,

watched and waited,

for anything, just anything and everything

*

Thanks for reading!

Author's Notes: Had this for a long time, since I started my stream of consciousness pieces a couple of months ago or so. It's quite self-explanatory. Although in our situation, the weather brought down the tree...but I had heard some stories of trees being cut down unnecessarily.

Also...little update...I'm slowly working my way through the comments section of this piece, so will get to all your wonderful pieces eventually. Just in case any one was worried I'd forgotten.

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