Tree By The Maritime Museum Poem by Victoria Gauci

I often stood upon the beach,
Where this old tree had once stood,
It was craggy and bowed over,
A tangle of crotchety wood,

Frozen in place by the museum,
No one paid it any mind,
People came to pay a visit to,
The Museum of Maritime,

A giant anchor it stood next to,
This magnificent old tree,
Many times I would sit there alone,
And it would comfort me,

The seagulls never paid attention,
Never bothered to perch at all,
No one seemed to think that it,
Had ever once stood tall,

It was hunched down to the sand,
As if trying to take a snooze,
I imagined the storms had left,
Its mightiness quite bruised,

In the grooves of its bark I'd see,
Different designs and pictures,
In it I saw such magical beauty,
On the beach my favorite fixture,

So over bent and reaching out,
To the lake as if it mourned,
Wishing it was somewhere else,
I sensed a feeling of forlorn,

After many years had passed,
I returned to pay a visit,
Almost all the beach was gone,
And it seems the tree went with it.

2012