My First Tree
The first tree I remember was a giant oak
behind my boyhood home,
the marker between the driveway and the garden.
When I was six, I jumped and hung on the lowest branch,
jumped up and down clinging to the spring of that branch
hoping that I had the weight to break it.
Our neighbor, Earnest Ozales, came and stopped me.
He explained to me the tree was a living thing
and the same way I didn’t want to be hurt it didn’t want to be hurt.
He showed me the smallest twig at the tip of the branch
was like my finger, not to be broken.
He had escaped the Nazis, was an arborist in Latvia.
Now, every forest is my sanctuary,
every tree is my upright companion,
pillars of praise to created mercy,
the ground from which everything springs.
Frank Desiderio, CSP, a poet, priest, and TV producer has served as a pastor, campus minister, retreat director and author (Can You Let Go of a Grudge, Paulist Press, 2014). He produced the film Judas for ABC TV (2004) and several documentaries for cable television. His poems have appeared in the Spring Hill Review, Windhover, Ars Medica, Moving Image: Poetry Inspired by Film among other journals. He and his sister, Mimi Moriarty, authored the chapbook Sibling Revery (Finishing Line Press, 2012). Currently he lives in Manhattan.
Amethyst Review 