Published in Friends Bulletin, 1995.

 

TWO MEDITATIONS ON TREES

by Dorothy Mack

 

Under Five Dead Trees

    At our spring retreat we sit
    indoors on metal folding chairs
    and look through glass at green
    alder and pine along the creek,
    not overhead at five dead trees,
    angled to hold up roof and sky,
    fifty-foot cathedral beams,
    once upright, rooted, straight.

    Once breathing out, breathing in,
    now shaved, slabbed, bolted in place
    atop a ridgepole; crucified elders,
    old as Methuselah, cut in their prime.

 

Under Five Live Trees

    At a fall retreat we sit
    outdoors in a grove of oak
    and reach with open arms
    to catch the floating yellow
    hands drifting down from
    a canopy enshrouding all,
    summer roof held aloft
    by dark winter branches.

    Caught in a golden parachute,
    we try skydiving worship,
    throw back our heads, breathe in,
    leap up and out again.