From a distance
it looked like ordinary
wood, a snuff-colored twig
one might rake
for burning. Surfaced
by the bulldozer
from a sarcophagus of clay, it
could have been the brittle
finger-bone of a prophet, or a
phalange of an extinct ape
from another age. Black
spruce, the geologist says,
buried by the last glacier
budging across Illinois.
The branch lies cool
against the palm. You count
the rings in cross-section:
fourteen. One for each
millennia the tree was a secret
no one knew to tell. You
feel a rush of centuries
receding and for a moment
stand among its antecedents.
The conifer reaches for thin
blue sky, breathes
air full of promise.
In the silhouette
you see a tree waiting
for December.
Image by liiuyyu via Creative Commons. Image cropped.
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