An Old Tree

Old was this tree when it gave up its life It had lived for many, many a year Countless the tons of winds had blown and bent Its bough, and countless the nest’s of song birds Which had clung by magic to limb’s and leaves. Why it choose in my way, to plant itself To drop its dead limbs around yard and roof. Ones an impressive, immense towering Oak Now a quiet and looming, rotting huge hulk Of limbs and bulk and twigs and massive trunk. Yet immortal as ones it seemed to be Its days now spent to be a useless thing Rot and decay not fit for firewood or Shade. But oh! The life it had witnessed then. It may well have given shade to Indian Lovers, before the coming of white men. It branches have nested the white-wing dove Before man’s guns pushed them from the earth. A Lumber-Jack Woodpecker may have pecked And cleaned some lost bugs from its bark and wood. It had seen, where it stood, the Buffalo And Bear when they roomed the wild and lived free. All that now gone and so goes this grand tree. It stands now, not as a marker to time Or place, but as an old dead, dangerous tree. That must bear the ax and saw; cut and burn With little thought as to what it was once Even smaller thought to what it has been A protector of life and gift to man.