so glad they do

the 

new life 

you 

long for 

comes at 

the price 

of the thing 

you’re too

afraid to let go of 

can a tree 

grow new 

leaves 

in spring 

while still

clinging to 

what

grew 

lifeless 

last fall?

I wish 

they could

speak, 

the trees.

I’d ask, 

how many 

seasons

were required

of letting go 

of everything 

in their gradual 

process of

transformation 

from a seedling 

into a tree? 

I’d ask, 

the trees,

is the strength 

of your roots 

proportional to 

depths you had to 

acquire in each 

new season of 

being stripped bare? 

I’d ask,

how many 

times did 

you, 

dear tree,

have to release  

what you once 

lovingly and 

diligently 

cultivated 

in order to 

eventually 

become yourself such

that you might offer

shade for people 

refuge from storms

or a home for birds 

all by simple virtue 

of you being you? 

and was this

wisdom always 

welcome to you, 

dear tree? 

that discovering 

the true gifts of 

your own givenness 

demanded the 

grief of letting 

go of outgrown 

versions of yourself?

I’d ask 

dear tree, 

do you ever resent 

that your growth 

demands 

such regular grief? 

To let go 

and let go 

and let go 

and let go 

and then let go 

all over again? 

dear tree, 

tell me,

is the grief 

of growth 

worth it? 

how I wish 

the tree might 

respond 

how I wish 

they could, 

with words 

encourage 

my own 

bereaved 

becoming 

and yet 

somehow 

I still receive an answer 

i hear 

the birds cheerfully 

chirping up above in the 

safety of the tree’s 

hard fought 

refuge 

i see the beauty 

of a tree

who has not performed itself 

nor it’s shade 

nor it’s shape 

nor it’s size 

nor it’s sturdiness  

rather  

i witness  

the simple beauty 

of a thing 

that loved itself 

enough 

to root its 

brief life

where it was 

and diligently 

let itself happen 

over 

and over 

and over again 

and I notice myself,  

delighting in the shade 

of the trees willingness 

to keep showing up 

despite the regular 

demands of letting go, 

and its here 

I discover 

hope. 

maybe  

one’s beauty 

is married 

to the necessary 

bereavement of 

one’s gradual becoming. 

could it be? 

my grief 

being but 

one more 

strange gift 

of my own givenness? 

I wish they could speak 

the trees

and yet 

i’m so glad they do.