Upon the swamps I used to roam,
The land I used to call home,
There sat a tree.
The tree was quite useful, at least to thee,
The carpenters cut down it’s kin,
Stripping bark to core, surface to what lay within,
Made into cabinets, plywood, and the gum stored in my jaws,
My tree was the only one standing—it outlasted the chainsaws.
I lie beneath it’s fiery old-gold hues,
Not knowing what I had to lose,
Growing taller and stouter, greyer than gray,
Sweetgum balls pricking, time was ticking—a reminder that I could never stay.
But that tree could, through all of the ages,
I returned as a child, adult, parent, geriatric; all of the stages,
My children surrounding the tree,
Playing ring-around-the-rosie,
This tree unites and outlasts us all.
Yet we always return, with it’s beckon and call.
