Poem: “Walking Trees”
Walking Trees
Superficial sorrow
Tears white-washing your sepulchre.
Soon, soon enough
Dry bones will crumble
Into the eternal stone sarcophagus
Of a life barely lived.
A Walking Tree, bearing no fruit,
For, your roots penetrated only
The surface of His mantle,
Never reaching His core:
The consuming fire of love
That streams under roots drawing them
Deeper and deeper into unplumbed caverns.
Golf games, idle chatter, driving, driving…
Spurious tentacles seek depths, yet
Wither under the threat of authentic intimacy. Love.
The son of the world scorches fragile emotions.
Limbs broken, Walking Trees retreat into their acorns,
Their tombs, without bearing life.
Springs of prayer flow from the hearts of Ipse Christus
Softening hardened paths. Graced, Walking Tree
Roots through, and past rocky soil of
Broken relationships and the mocking of Nature’s promises
Unkept– Except for one–Death.
Transitory roots. Tiny hairs of gluttony and passions
Replaced by the tap root. Thirsting for Truth.
Burrowing for belief in eternal life,
Where only the True Son shines,
In the core of the universe.
Remember your tears,
Your cheek moist with mascara streaks. Blue mascara!
With tears water your soul, a Sea of Life.
Roots, plumb the depths!
Be still, Oh Tree!
See your sisters, your brothers who thirst.
Smile upon them with the Virgin’s own smile.
Give them life!
Weep His tears over Jerusalem.
And act! Act!
Lay down your life on the Living Tree
Planted firmly into skulls.
The Living Tree bearing fruit in the dust of death.
Now, wash feet with your tears.
Wash the feet of a lonely Walking Tree.
Cleanse the impure heart with crystal tears of chastity.
His overflowing eyes in you, see, cauterize,
Roots burrowing into thorns:
“It’s my life”,
“When’s my time?”
“I’ve been going up to Jerusalem long enough!”
Graves. You have all eternity to rest, in Him.
Quenched by His only tear on Calvary,
Water flowing from His Sacred Side,
You flourish in the withering sun,
Providing sons of Jonah, shade.
Authentic tears kindle your flaming soul.
Paint a rainbow over the Elysian fields!
Stacy Peterson
