Conifer Confidants

In my darkest moments,

            I cannot count the leaves,

I’ve shared my deepest secrets with,

            Conversing with the trees.

Trees, the only living things,

            To see us come and go,

Hold a royal wisdom

            No humans ever know.

 

There was a little earthworm

            I stepped over near my work.

I should have knelt and moved him                

            From the concrete, to the dirt.

We move within a time frame

            We walk but don’t look down,

Crushing those beneath our feet,

            Too small to make a sound.

 

The huddled, shaking sparrow

            On the dotted yellow line,

I passed by on the highway

            To get to work on time.

Pressed silent in black asphalt,

            He's my most recurring dream.

So silent in his final hour,

            Yet I heard the violent scream.

 

I also hear  the hourglass;

            As tumbling boulders slide.

The grains behave to gravity

            Like water to moon’s tide.

I yearn to be a witness

            To the future and the past.

But find it harder to let go,

            Of mortality at last.

 

Not Redwoods, we are frail

            Like the Alders, first to fall,

Trees know I am the earthworm,

            I’m the sparrow, oh so small.

So quite aware all’s leaving

            With every passing breeze,

I look for some stability,

            I find it in the trees.