Of Stars and Trees
Loose and summer-damp,
my sons and I
are lying on the old trampoline.
Between the customary wash of traffic
and the sky's quiet
we lie, the three of us,
here, on our webbed island,
and the younger one says,
"Are all those stars really bigger than a tree?"
His brother is, of course, stunned
by such ignorance. "Yes!" he shouts.
"Just one star, just one,
could swallow all the trees in the world!"
The nine-year-old, having heard this before,
frowns, as he weighs
each tiny speck against
the raw, green presence of a tree.
After all, a boy can climb a tree.
The stars are out of reach,
lighter on a child's scales,
on my own, even,
there being much to love about a tree—
wrinkles of wood, of grace, in your hands,
the wet honey crunch of an apple,
and the light, piling heavy on the stems
like some fabulous hat.
There is, too, the intricacy of roots,
loving ground, crowning fertile earth.
And there are branches, daring you to climb—
to be anointed by a breeze,
to know that you're alive.
I rise up on an elbow,
slightly dizzy, eyes around my boys,
considering stars, and trees,
and what skeptics we are, and how a Star once
laid aside His shine
and buttoned on skin
and climbed down the sky
to be a Tree.
Loose and summer-damp,
my sons and I
are lying on the old trampoline.
Between the customary wash of traffic
and the sky's quiet
we lie, the three of us,
here, on our webbed island,
and the younger one says,
"Are all those stars really bigger than a tree?"
His brother is, of course, stunned
by such ignorance. "Yes!" he shouts.
"Just one star, just one,
could swallow all the trees in the world!"
The nine-year-old, having heard this before,
frowns, as he weighs
each tiny speck against
the raw, green presence of a tree.
After all, a boy can climb a tree.
The stars are out of reach,
lighter on a child's scales,
on my own, even,
there being much to love about a tree—
wrinkles of wood, of grace, in your hands,
the wet honey crunch of an apple,
and the light, piling heavy on the stems
like some fabulous hat.
There is, too, the intricacy of roots,
loving ground, crowning fertile earth.
And there are branches, daring you to climb—
to be anointed by a breeze,
to know that you're alive.
I rise up on an elbow,
slightly dizzy, eyes around my boys,
considering stars, and trees,
and what skeptics we are, and how a Star once
laid aside His shine
and buttoned on skin
and climbed down the sky
to be a Tree.