Mystic Journey: Earth 2 Poem by doug bentley

spring is pure potential. there's no
calculating how tall a tree will be,
how far its branches will stretch, how
each fork will unfold, how many

healthy leaves we will see. but
by summer we can measure the result.
pure potential has become actual.
contours of the trunk well-defined,

strength of the root system is visible.
through time the roots are intertwined
with other systems, and from then on
there's no dividing it from other trees.

the forest is a single, inseparable web.
but autumn will split two families.
despite the intermingling of their sap
one will become a shrivelled skeleton

of brittle branches, a stack of sticks.
for it, winter attacks in battalion.
overnight, all's white. ice chokes lungs.
sapless leaves are torn, one-by-one, or in

bunches from bared branches. twisting
in the gravity of an indifferent wind
to breathless unconscious snow they fall.
deciduous flee frost, their proud showing

hiding for a season beneath pitiless snow.
but for evergreens, winter is only a minor
vexation. they take no precautions at all.
the frozen gales of november hold no power.

one white february we buried gordon bentley*
six feet deep. in soil undisturbed for decades,
if not centuries, his solid oak coffin rests.
ever silent (except when shock of wind pulses,

rushes, crushes in waves) tall evergreen trees
guard two graves on a golden hill where pasts
began. in the beginning he hugged that ground.
at his end the same soil compasses him round.


* my father