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The book The House of the World has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and is now available on Amazon.

Four Spruce Trees

The spruce trees tower in the sky.
They were no higher than me
when I put them in.
A barrier to pavement,
the parking of cars,
the noise of a cheerful school.
They were meant to be a barrier,
to bring quiet to the garden,
to shelter the birdbath,
the coming and going of rabbits
and chipmunks.
In winter the snow gathers
on their greenness
and I feel no older than a child.
Each year I watch their decoration,
they pull me into their beauty.
A haven and a release
to the openness of things.

A fence not meant to be a fence,
but a shore,
where I see the light
enter at dusk,
the moon travel through their branches,
the wind become soft with their swaying.
And like a chapel
where hush is a sound,
prayer a language of the heart,
they give me so much for being there.
Denied a forest
for a small lot in a dense city,
I thank them,
one living thing to another.

Published inIndex of all Poems