Not a smooth petaled stone,
At the river's bottom,
Tossed by moon tides
Old with water’s age,
Not a sprig of john’s wort,
Blooming yellow beneath the golden sun,
Ripe with age for the picking,
To heal some fetid wound,
Nor a Galapagos egg to hatch,
Me a turtle racing for the tide
Beneath the sky of prey-birds,
Born a tree, I was, outstretching limbs,
Covering you beneath rugged arms,
Born a tree, to hold back sun,
To water your roots,
I bend to you in winter frost,
Produce fruit for your feeble trunk,
You, my tender sapling, bend to me
Our roots lay entwined beneath
Forever weaving through forest dust
