BY LINDA HENLEY
Copyright is held by the author.
It stood alone on its grassy bed
gently stooping, twisted boughs
clinging to a grey, knobby trunk.
Its child-climbing days long past
and thinning foliage each spring
I wondered about the year
when it would drop
its last yellow leaf.
But like a well-thumbed volume
offering comfort
the tree shone, transformed,
each fall, with apples ripening red,
and fruit fragrance
crowding its branches
until everything fell, leaves and all,
and the tree spread wider,
opening bare, childlike arms,
to accept an embrace,
or simple thanks.
I hold hope
for such ripe aging.
***
Linda Stewart Henley is the author of three prize-winning novels published by She Writes Press: Estelle, Waterbury Winter, and Kate’s War. She occasionally writes poetry. She lives with her husband in the U. S. Pacific Northwest.
