Sequioa

Honorable Mention in the 2016 KCLS Rhyme on Poetry Contest

Roots stooped in soft soil lend to hidden veins, flooding with life like a growing whisper.

Pulsing and beating beneath the surface of existence you sustain a lifetime of hearts, each one branching farther than before into the unlikeliest rings.

With wooden bones, knotted from the flares of lightning long cracked into your back, you bend your limbs toward the growing light.

In the midst of fire your body remains, Stronger and wiser arms solemnly raised.

While disease and war riddle the earth, you weather each storm with a trunk far thicker than human hands can hold.

Standing at your base we are all made smaller, Shrunken down seedlings put into our place.

As the years carry on, each after the other, You grow with the world, one leaf to another.

As I look up into the sky, to the very highest top I reach out a hand to history.

For a thousand years is a long time to stand in one place.