Trees

 

Many pines remain 

in Pine Top, AZ,

and you can still find birches 

in Birch Tree, AR,

but, for most of us,

we only have photo albums

to take us back to our roots.

Our palms remain hearty.

Thank goodness there was no

Dutch Palm Tree malady,

although I’m pretty sure that

it wasn’t Dutch Orange Tree disease

that caused all those uprootings in SoCal.

There is a Santa Rosa plum tree,

which I planted,

on the 118th day of 1975,

over the septic field

in the more-or-less-an-acre 

at the end of Hyland Way,

a cul-de-sac in

Penngrove, California.

That tree still lives,

at 50, well past its plan,

somewhat like me at 81,

yet we both still bear fruit.

I am certain that part of who 

I am is in that old tree 

and that tree is in me.