While hiking in the heart of the rainforest I scribed this poem, inspired by an enormous zapatero tree.
Tree of Life
You stand growing thick
with wisdom as history swirls
the breeze like a magician,
turning saplings to trees
at your knees. Your sculpted
arms seek both high and low
to offer passage and rest.
To hold the sky to the world.
Blue to green.
Heaven to Earth.
A ladder to the stars.
I see the footprints
of fairies, hear the whispers
of spirits, whose frames paused
at your feet and melted
back to terra.
You lifted their pain and worries.
Threw them back to the sun.
Fed them to the rain
spilling like tears.
You have seen the beginning;
is the end too near?
-Brooke Bessesen, 2008