The Senator Series – Part Five

January 19^th, 2012

Whether by Bike or by Car 

Tires would speed your way.

Never was a trip complete without

A visit

A sight

A moment.

Through the dewy, spring hammock

Excitement would build

As friends were dragged to your feet

To see their expression—astonishment,

Amazed.

This place was yours,

And by being here

So were we.

Standing large, hands would cover eyes

To see your face for the sun. To think

Of all your life had endured

Our own ages are nothing compared.

One look at your rough, holey bark

Would fill a heart with wisdom

Of strength in storms,

Fortitude in floods,

Fidelity in draughts,

Beauty in years

That forge into a fortress

That flourishes as a well-tended rose.

Now into softest earth
Your character decays
Into us where fruit born
Will nourish us to long life.

We were satisfied knowing that as much

As we would never know about this land

About the world

You have known.

Knowing you to have been here

So we could hope to be,

A tree of life to live by.

The Senator Series – Part Four

January 18^th, 2012

 You Remember the Days Long Ago

As your spirit grows faint

The flame around you—within you—delighting.

For you are a great work

Made by great hands

As your branches have ever spread

For him, always shading

His burdened heart in your refuge.

His face has ever been upon you

On this morning you feel the flames of his love;

A consuming fire that has sustained you all along.

By looking up, our vision

And thoughts were lifted higher

Than our normal lives see,

Above the places we never leave to recognize

One larger, taller, greater than ourselves.

You have been a long, faithful servant

Giving a glimpse of the one who will 

Truly never die

Who gives to those life who seek it

Who prepares a place for you

In gardens ever-rich

Where you won't fight to stand strong

Where you will always touch the sky

And feel the sun.

As we were tiring to keep you

You were lifted up

Falling to level ground.

Your way has been but deeper in

And higher up

And a little more girth in between.

The Senator Series - Part Three

January 19^th, 2012

When the Waters Came Up 

In horror, wind ripping limbs and leaves

She let go of her children

As her trunk was drowned

Above base and branch.

When the waters ran you floated

And found a place,

Be it barren

Cold

Lifeless.

When you felt the warmth of the sun

You rooted

        Grew

While unsure

In the soil you found strength

With a sense of what this would become,

Letting out leaves to match

Greens to browns

Height to breadth.

In your time

You shaded others too scared to emerge,

And much later directed those who moved and changed.

Standing tall you kept

Watch over a quiet swamp, feeling everything

To be yours and yourself to be theirs.

When more came

You asked them to sit

Think

Wonder

Find strength in hard times

Rise above adversity

Be quiet in clamor

Find a place to set anchor until

The energy of life overtakes us in a flash—

In a wave—

And we are gone.

The Senator Series - Part Two

January 18^th, 2012

I Sit in Silence

Not of contemplation but of disbelief.

Like a fast train on uneven tracks I want

to roll around to grieve for the loss of you.

My life was one of tens

of thousands of generations

that breathed while you breathed.

Why couldn’t it have been one more?

Arriving home, at your feet

I would always humble myself.

To return to find you sitting—

my looking down—

will find me on my knees at your side,

an inequality I never wanted balanced;

A minute below your light-cleansing canopy

An inspiration tuning intuition.

Knowing you were there at the end of the trail

Tucked within palmetto and yellow poplar

I knew I was home,

Home as it has been for a thousand years

Where the noise of a day and a year are smoothed

To a long tranquility revealing that everything turns

Out all right in time, through changes and civilizations.

So others could sit you have stood for all time

Waiting for another to come to pass on

The unbroken line. Through hurricane winds,

Storms of sudden light and blasting noise,

Through greedy hands holding buckets for sap
And saws for woody flesh,

Wars shedding blood at your roots,

Through a hundred fires before, you

Persevered all to send our hearts to leap

At the sight of profound stature. Burning spontaneously

In a glorious blaze of indwelling you became the torch

For your Lady, a call to carry on in wisdom,

Honor and faithfulness.

Years ago, before I knew you

Your kind

Or the kind of anything

I planted a tree.

As I saved it from a potted, draughty death

Freeing his roots to a hole in the ground

And his dreams to the sky

I gave you a successor and prepared my heart

For your grace. The line is yet unbroken.

The Senator Series - Part One

January 22^nd, 2012

Taking the Long Path

To your woods there was

A moment where I wondered if

You would still be there

Or if you’d have disappeared—

Impossibly uprooted

And left in the night;

A gigantic phantom.

Against understanding

By mystery

You remained.