By Ana Lisa de Jong —
Look at the trees
No matter the season
there is a lesson
held in each strip of bark,
each clinging transient leaf,
each bare branching limb.
We drink from their wisdom.
From the trees,
who ask nothing of us
but give us deep companionship.
Whose silent stance
comforts us
in a wordless tenderness.
Whose dignity raises ours.
Who has not carried grief
to the forest
and been able to lay it down.
Under the trees
who stretch out their limbs
to receive.
Transfuse us with life in a silent exchange.
Trees know,
there is no need
for explanations.
Life and death have played out
under their arching canopies.
We are known and understood.
Pretence can drop like the leaves.
Hope finds its renewal
in the greening of spring.
Joy takes root
in the abundant summer bloom.
Fall brings solace in leaves that fall
with a promise of return.
Winter’s starkness recalls to us
the strength standing unencumbered brings.
Yes we look up at the trees,
and no matter the season we draw
the lesson needed.
Perhaps greater than anything
the trees teach
is what they give
without preaching.
Space to breathe,
to rest and rise up again,
to learn the secrets of the earth.
To turn with the turning seasons,
not hold on to what’s made to fall,
but wait for it to return
in a new form,
in a promised spring.
“For there is hope for a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease.”
Job 14:7