The Beeches

The Beeches

With visions of silver tubular towers,
And parallel posts of solid cool shade,
The beeches were planted some time ago
In the rocky ground with hope and care.

Sapplings but two feet high, they grew slowly.
Their shortness and delayed promise gave pause,
But you were told: long-lived strong trees grow slow.
The weak ones (willows and poplars) shoot up,

But the compact soil opens not to them;
Neither to the eager but facile roots
of weeping willows nor to the widely
Indiscriminate spread of the cottonwood.

You drew strength from the fact that beeches
Resemble sturdy stainless steel structures
That, in columnar pairs, like Atlas,
Support the very sky to which they reach.

Their branches strained to reach the vision,
But did not match the deep penetration
Of the hidden anchor of their roots.
They still had no hint of silver bark

When winter came snow quickly overcame
Their mostly promised height. One cold dark night
A deer came and silently chewed off
The one sole branch not buried in the snow,

Leaving a broad solid sheet of flat white
that horizontally drew the eye out
And then up to a still starry sky, untouched;
Below - the sleeping roots awaited spring.