This White Pine

                                     once stood
converged with the sky. Now it
teeters on the bank
of the lake, roots hairy like
Grendel’s mother, providing

refuge for fertile
muskrats creeping through its bones
digging deep to nest.
Kids discover it half-in,
half-out of the water, play

seesaw, dive off, climb
on, and on, until—deadhead—
it sinks.

                  Years later
a diver will retrieve this
tree: outer bark putrefied,

its inside perfect.
Called one hundred percent heart,
resin will have kept
it more stable, richly-hued
than newly cut woods. I wish

to mimic Pine: live
with branches spreading high, wide;
when old, be useful
to the end,

                     then raised up—born
again—be wholly revered.

Originally published in the Autumn 2013 issue of Bearings magazine.

Image: Giant White Pine by Joshua Mayer on Flickr, used courtesy of a Creative Commons License.

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