"Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky." Kahlil Gibran
One of the emails from TreeUtah included this quote by Kahlil Gibran and it inspired me. There is a genre of 'ecopoets' which I found attractive. I am sending along the following story-written in a prose type poetry style. I hope you enjoy it.
Tree Memory
As a new member to a poetry society
that critiques original poems
by experienced poets,
a recent widower wrote a poem
comparing his late wife to a tree.
At first, I thought this odd and offensive
His grief at missing his wife
was channeled to an inanimate object?
Was she only a decoration to him?
Then I pondered further.
Why would a talented poet use a tree as a metaphor for his dead wife?
She raised his children, made the meals,
Cleaned the home, was a positive presence,
that may have been taken for granted at the time,
but sorely missed once she was gone.
So, I thought about trees.
They protect us as with shade from the sun and storms
Like a wife would do for her family.
Trees have branches and leaves that provide a home
for the creatures that rely on her stability and hidden from the world.
As birds with nests to raise their young,a mother raises her young in the family home.
The bird will bring food to the young until they are grown and on their own
It may seem an expedited timeline to people, from hatch to fledgling,
but ask any mother how quickly that time seems to go by.
A tree is a beautifying presence.
One you may not miss until it is gone.
Many trees have an age limit.
Some longer, others not so,
depending on the type, care and location
It may last longer than your lifetime or less.
You may want to replace it for many of the reasons above,
but it will never be the same as the original tree.
Such is life, but we do have the memories of the beautiful tree we had.
Marilyn Marshall Dec 2025
