If I Were a Tree

If I were a tree, tall and old
This world might not seem so cold
Even with the biting frost gnawing my bark.
I wouldn't worry, in light or in dark,
For trees carry no memory but in adding rings.
And with each sunrise the birds would anew sing,
Singing songs with meanings that cannot be expressed.
So my stately tree silence would simply be best.
But when winds would blow my arms would clap,
And to grow I need consult no map.
I'd climb the rungs of heaven's call
Raising up leaves to sunny heights from which to drop in fall.
If I were a tree the lovers of this world could sit below me,
And carve their name, and call me "their tree."
To be a tree would be to know,
In brightest day and deepest snow,
That the light of day brings newness and life,
That ownership is marked with a knife.
To rightly ponder the song of the sparrow
And to climb to God, straight and narrow.