Trees

The trees 'round here are crazy
Or so I have been told.
They dress up when it's hot out
And go naked when it's cold

* * *

All trees, like people,
Begin as fragile shoots.
The condition of the tree
Is evidence of its roots.

* * *

I'm sure glad I'm not a tree
Whose scenery is never changing.
I think roots would slow me down
When I wanted to go a ranging.

* * *

"Have you ever stood on a moon dappled limb?
Up near the top where the trunk tapers slim?
Where you cling to the bark with a white-knuckle grip
As it pitches and rolls like the deck of a ship?

Have you ever slept in the riotous trees?
Have you been rocked to sleep by the force of the breeze?
Have you laid out your roll in the quiet recess
Of a woodpecker's hole or an old robin's nest?

Have you ever sat where the mourning grieves?
Looked out on a view that's framed by the leaves?
Where the comings and goings of things here and there
Are plain to your sight from so high in the air?

I have" Jarudet the Widjiwat