by Raechel Hunsaker

Today I join the wind as she speaks of the trees, voice shaped by crowded leaves

Not of the strong, who cradled me as a child in the crook of their gentle branch

Nor of the vast, who resist every storm with roots spreading as trails on a map

But I speak of the un-evergreen who surrendered their yellowing needles to drought

The withered juniper with a twisted spine, features bent in a permanent scowl

The lightning-oak, shattered remnants of wood piercing the sky like cathedral spires

The split, the sapling, the bone-white, the blackened, the drifting, the bent, the briared 

Today I speak of broken trees and fallen faith 

I used to think of myself as a tree-woman 

Roots embedded as spreading veins 

Ribs sturdy as reaching branches 

The lines around my eyes 

Would set like patterns of bark 

And I was immovable 

Until 

Reality broke me like a weed 

Wrenched cherished dreams from my chest 

But these were rooted deep as my faith 

Intertwined in the soil of my identity 

Leaving only torn remnants and a few strewn leaves 

And I fell against the weight of it all 

Yet 

Who has not seen life written on every surface of a fallen log with speckled lichen,

Insect trails, emerald moss, mushroom caps, a nursery of seedlings, a fox’s den?

The parched forest still shelters the stumbling fawn, brittle branches woven tight

The crooked branch still offers a fledgling perch, as he springs away in his first flight

The shattered lightning-oak riddled with holes now holds a northern flicker inside

The collapsed willow slows the thrashing stream, giving life to sedges and dragonflies

The dying ash yields softened wood to Perenniporia in swathes of cream and ochre Broken trees bear fruit past death as chairs, tables, and this very piece of poet’s paper 

God, I hope my broken tree can still be of some worth to Thee

This poem by Raechel Hunsaker was the first place winner  in our Every Good Tree writing contest.