Roadside Tree Poem by Jacqui Thewless

Contemplative scribe,
how much silence do you need? -
See the roadside tree,

peacefully awake
in its springtime covering,
not hiding the sky;

unnoticed, perhaps,
by speeding motorcyclists
in lines of traffic,

or cops in fast cars
whose sirens shriek their mission,
ripping the spring air;

like human culture,
its roots are complicated;
its sap-flows – up to sunlight

from hidden places
of unimaginable
darkness – seldom praised.

Thank you, we say, for
the cherry’s blooms, forgetting
its cycles of change,

so much like our own
passages between dark and
light, noise and silence.