Great Lone Tree, So Beautiful

Great Lone Tree, So Beautiful Great lone tree standing in the middle of Harper's lot weathering all attacks from so many enemies it has got Struck eleven times by lightning in as many years last one burned so hot that sap burst forth like tears! First plague was ten thousand locusts eating it's fruits next came grub worms devouring it's sweet tender roots After that first fire came burning high above it's trunk then came the woodpeckers pecking out chunk by chunk! Next the teenage boys driving in nails for a playhouse adding to the big holes bored so deeply by a wood mouse Second fire burned it's trunk until hard rain put it out followed by six years of county's hottest, longest drought Great lone tree had weathered so many terrible attacks insects gnawing ever deeper it's long and deep cracks These many years it gave it's fruit and comforting shade it's life beaten but that majestic beauty never did fade Great lone tree stood reaching ever upward to Mother Sky enduring all while so stubbornly refusing to ever die! Robert Lindley 06-10- 2014.. Rewrite from the late 70's. Based on the huge mulberry tree in vacant field just behind our house.. So beautiful but one could see the many scars it had endured yet still survived! I used to pick the mulberrys in the bountiful years! Mother would make cobbler from them and it was glorious