Father

He's a lumbering tree.
Autumn's nearly over and his branches are beginning to crack in the cold.
Yet in the ripple of laughter I see signs of youth,
In wrinkles, like rings inside the tree's trunk.
Even the stiff branches, they're still green inside-
A few orange leaves hang on a fiber to the branches.
In breeze, he'll whistle and grin at the sun.

In storm, his old form bends, but it has never moved,
He hums in sorrow, and dripping from the branches,
Tears slide down the quaking leaves to water the earth.
But he'll never move-
He's not the moving kind.

'Cause you know the old tree, cracked and dry,
Will be there as he was when you return from wanderings.
You'll crawl up the trunk and the branches blanket you,
And to humming you nod off, and reminisce.

3/5/2011