Poetry

Gustave Deghilage photo

By

Soren Paul Petrek

The Tree

The tree watched me and I it for twenty years.

Its eyes droop, its face distorts as it grows older and so do I.

I imagined it evil once, like a skeleton of a face.

Retribution and a knowledge of my sins on the tip of its tongue.

Each spring the tree would sprout flowers and hide its sneer behind fresh green

growth, a home for birds and squirrels. A prodigious acorn producer he liked

to drop them on my boat in the fall just to remind me he’s the king of the lake,

full grown and hearty when I was just a pup.

We look at each other with hollow eyes when his leaves have dropped

and winter’s coming.  His feet lay deep beneath the lake, he’ll live long after I die.

A home to creatures of all kinds, birds who nest and raise their young in his arms

while I leave to toil away to solve someone else’s senseless problems.

But this spring the tree will see me leave, will he be sad, or has he seen

others go as well?  Will there be another man or woman for him to haunt?

while his roots drink deeply from the lake where he’ll eventually die and rot.

Not so for me, my feet can take me anywhere I want to go and for now it’s away.

Soren Paul Petrek

Poet and award winning novelist, Soren Paul Petrek has been writing since his early teens.

Cold Lonely Courage and his other works are available on Amazon. He intends to publish his book of poetry, Mountain in the near future.