my favourite things / a garment of praise

standing there
gazing up

I saw the tree for the first time

not that I have never seen it before

I walk by it each day
perhaps
a dozen times

I watch the woodpecker family
dance and flit between its maze

the juncos
hummers
robins
chickadees
all find refuge



I pick up its fallen branches
after a storm

I plant a garden
beneath
its boughs

I see laughing children
collecting buckets of rocks
and making daisy chains
in the cool shade

I see its reflection
in the summer puddles

I collect its fallen leaves
come Autumn

I gaze upon it with the first snows
and against clear blue skies
throughout each season

I can still see a young boy
high in its limbs
while I wrestle joyously
with dog Sunshine
below in the big tree's shade
I marvel how a boy
can be so fearless
so high
he hangs upside down
and swings
he tells us a story
and laughs
he rests like a cat on a limb
or a bird perched
I think I can catch him
if he falls
but
he wriggles down
easy as a squirrel

It is the same tree
Opa said blocked his view
of the Northern sky
so...clad still in ski boots
and the young lad to hold the ladder
he climbed high
with chain saw
to delimb the tree
also removing Jedaiah's stepping stones
for future climbing

we don't always understand
the consequence of our actions

this young boy
now skydives
he needs no limbs

still the Old Cottonwood stands

and at twilight
I really see it for the first time

bursting forth with spring buds
ripened but still sealed
sap running through its veins
after winter's rest
bringing elasticity to
its many boughs
reaching
curving graceful
ever upwards

I also raise my arms
to the One worthy
my limbs and heart
raised high
to the true and
Exalted One

we stand together
in worship
to the Holy One
a tree
and little me
twilight
silhouetting us
in a soft
and sleepy sky

I learn each bend in her banches
how they grow strong from the trunk
and stretch elastic
and alway to the sun
always to the Son
my heart longing to be so beautiful
as this ancient tree before me
scars healed over
life flowing to all corners
nourishment replenished
new growth
graceful
His grace flowing

the twilight lets me see its frame
I can't take my eyes away


one star Eduardo sees

I glance
at the one lone star
gracing the evening sky
then return
to this tree

I think I have never seen it before
so lovely

It is praising God
Arms lifted
my heart
lifted

we are dressed
in a garment of praise

my favourite things