Timber Tales Poem by Daniel Brick

The trees are exhausted, all of them:
elms and oaks, poplars and birches,
Russian olive and Nantuckett pine,
orange blossom and eucalyptus.
The list is perhaps endless.
And we haven't yet accounted for
California and the Great Plains,
and mountain tops have trees growing
sideways, or clinging to the edge
of the drop off. These faithful trees
cannot be forgotten. For ages we cannot
measure, trees have climbed hillsides,
reached their summits and rooted
themselves securely. They do not intend
to budge. Oh, they will bend in a storm,
and after the storm, they assume their
uprightness and their leaves glisten
being closer to the sun. We learned
to bend to Fate by observing the cautious
behavior of trees. Better than the philosophers
trying to reduce everything to a word,
I listen respectfully to their propositions,
their arguments which puzzle most people
I internalize and make my own. When I see
night falling on summits distant from me,
I gather my notes and head down, down, down
the hillside. The trees wave goodbye
with their leaves, otherwise stillness reigns.