The Torrent and the Tree by Linda Drattell

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The Torrent and the Tree
by Linda Drattell 

Why does it struggle so?
Its branches tremble and shiver 
against that which will inevitably
overcome it.

The biting rain flogs its leaves, 
the raw wind mauls its branches. 
The irate river, pulsing and rupturing the embankment, 
whips up slumbering silt and loosens the hold of its roots.
Lawless rapids sweep around it triumphantly, 
dragging the tree to a slow prostrate death.

Yet it resists 
as if sheer will can repel the forces which 
assault it.
A few extra minutes of life, worth the agony.
The tree twists and twines with a pluck it did not know it possessed,
its impaled soul refuses the sweet death that beckons.

It seems to know why it is there.
Its defiant arms are streaked with rugged lines 
from splintering cracks,
its trunk scarred with raw nubs 
where young branches fanning budding leaves 
once grasped the sky. 

As it sinks to the will of the aggressor,
the trembling forest bears witness, 
comprehends
it is the tree which has overcome the torrential waters.

Its measure, 
Now resting in long-overdue quietude, 
gazes gratefully at Heaven
for not even Death can erase 
those precious defiant moments
it spent on Earth. 

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