Today’s thematic prompt is to write a nature poem.   Perhaps, even with its thorn tree image, this is not exactly a nature poem.  It is a poem I have been needing to write.

Small tree,
torn and twisted
in the sun of the savannah,

I have seen the small scars
lining the tender inner branches,
the places where thorn buds emerge,
where thorns have been torn
from your soft bark,
lines like tally marks:
surviving this one,
and this one,
and this.

Adept at catching and tearing,
you hold and you scratch,

with a need as big as the world
and a horror of needing.
Notice me, notice me–
Oh, don’t

notice me.
Little tree,
torn from your source,
your roots cling in this soil
even as your scarred and stunted arms
reach and grasp the passing breeze.

Gratitude List:
1. The smell of spring blooming in the hollow
2. Mockingbird on the chimney-top, singing me home
3. Playing harmony on the violin with the Ellis the cellist
4. Josiah’s Earth Day Party
5. Being present

May we walk in Beauty.