Once you were a tree . . .

[Hannah Tillich, From Time To Time © 1973, p110]

THE TREE POEM

Once you were a tree
Your loving twig-hands,
raised in fatherly fashion,
tender sounding
in noontime wind.

I flew through your branches,
sang in morning light,
and built my nest
in your heart.

When the weather was angry
we swayed together.
I, secure at your side,
trembled whenever you did.

But in the summer rain,
deeply, trustingly hugged
by your sheltering leaves,
I gazed sleepily
into pearls of water
falling in silver chains
round my impervious house.

[I read From Time To Time more than ten years ago, and i often don't even notice its slim silhouette on my bookshelf.  Maybe it's time to read it again!

May the rains fall soft upon your fields.]