Mundane

By Marc Kool

How mundane to treat our trees as such, a military dress,

With precision lines, matching form, and crew cut evenness.

Based on a dream of glorious order, a type-A pin of success.

(Like minds would bind a woman's feet, for physical perfect-ness.)

Whatever that's found not quite measuring up to one kind of orderliness,

We'll lop it right off right at it's roots, because, well, we know what's best.

And what of the elder statesman wood with its multiple knots of stress?

Would a squirrel or nesting bird agree-in its uselessness?

A managed domain leaves little room for chance to find success

But a child prefers the chance dandelion over endless grassiness.

Consider the artist's point of view, where the exception is what is best.

Isn't a parks most pressing goal: visual interest?

The rings of age and curves of branch most surely would attest

To a change from simpler, less measured times, when life was a little more blessed.

Most certainly we have miles to go, with little cause for rest,

For who'd watch young twigs fill up with snow, that would be folly, yes?

Free To Be Gnarly

by George G. Rose

I took a walk in recent days,

Passed a cherry tree on the way.

It was wizened and twisted and gnarly,

Yet firmly rooted beside a stream of living water.

This was a mid-winter's day, brown and grey.

The tree was barren, stark, but strong,

Holding the promise not to wither,

Still to yield its fruit in season and prosper.

Yet a man may not discern the truth here,

Becoming impatient to have his plan so dear,

No longer bearing with this wizened thing,

It is not pleasing perhaps to his grander vision.

Yes, we thinks us an enlightened race

With a better way so new and picturesque.

Think on it, imagine it, grasp it now,

And discard this gnarly beauty endowed.

This cherry tree is but a foil for 'what is',

What is not pleasing, what is inconvenient too.

Must they be pushed aside in our bold way?

How many have thus perished this very day?

These plans make me nervous, give me pause,

We destroy the young and discard the old.

Aware of this body becoming wizened and gnarly,

How soon will my gnarliness offend thee too?

Be it diversity perverted or uniformity bland,

Is this sufficient cause to wantonly

Take a gnarly life so rightly rooted?

Nay, let the cherry tree be!

I too want to be free to be gnarly,

I want to stand beside the stream,

To drink of the living waters,

And grow old and be fruitful still.