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Rain Tree
In our beginnings were but heaven and earth
you, the sky (I knew not birth)
a seed was I in a womb of dirt.
and then you cried and I did burst
forth to be a tree!
Four hundred years I longed and grew
your rains of tears, my conscious knew
surpass my fears to touch your blue
silken face-- the sky!
Each year I grew above the force
of fear. I knew I did divorce
the earth and she grew cold, remorse;
but, I stood firm-- I knew the course
to grow was only up!
Yet you seemed sad to watch this growth.
It drove you mad to know that both
you and I would be the most
distant from the earth.
So tears you cried but they did just
decrease the sky, increase the lust
my limbs could all but touch
you-- the distant sky!
But then one day I realized
that you were not so distant sky,
but merely all I dreamed to be so why
could I not see. . .
That four hundred years were much to be
an ever-striving, longing tree
of life. The sky chose not to be
so distant, but surrounded me
with this, her patient breeze.
And with this came a rapid growth;
a hundred feet and I did poke
a hole into the sky.
And as this came to pass, I heard
the howling winds, a screaming bird
(I thought); but, 'twas the sky.
You, the sky, and I, a tree
separation can there never be
for from your pain, life-giving rain
that makes another tree.
©1990 Gary C. Daniels
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