Ode To The Tree Outside My Window Poem by Max Reif

O tree outside
my window,
with your yellowgreen
lettucelike leaves,
swishing bells
in the spring breeze,

I breathe
your breath
and you breathe mine,
a holy symbiosis.

You give life to my
exhausted flesh and spirit
as I lie upon my bed.

I do not know your Secret.
You must contain
some great Secret,
touched by a divine wand.

No wonder the Druids
worshipped you,
simplicity itself
beneath and mingling
with the sacred sky,
all but forgotten
in the asphalt world,

your great, bearded head
buried below ground,
your long limbs
a ballet in the breeze,

some great Secret
in your hoary
vegetable brain,

your life so
unlike my life

yet joining me
through unseen
capillaries in the air,

blessing me and making
my life so much more tolerable
with even a glance at you
than if were you not here.

O tree outside my window,
accept my human
words of thanks.