A Tree Remembered

by Dancing Bear

 This tree speaks a language
 none can deny
 I look out through branches
 listening to her song
 She is a mother of rings
 a witness to the earth changes
 the old rivers and lakes
 that once moved here
 Of men and machines
 that tore away the hills
 and made this place suburbia
 Lucky some say
 she stands before this house
 like a sentinel
 watching me grow
 watching my changes
 My five summers friend
 I have been climbing all over her
 studying her every contour
 naming and feeding
 the squirrels and birds that
 live with her
 careful not to break a single branch
 Eleven years old
 to her hundreds
 never a greater team will ever be
 than me and this tree