Ancient Bark and Branch
Don Hynes
I don’t recognize myself in the mirror,
this profile of an old man; not the one
I think I am or feel in the bones of my face.
He seems to be sinking back into the earth.
I love the earth but I’m not going down, not yet.
My roots go down; I know them more than ever.
I feel the dark earth a living thing,
holding the stories of all I know and all I’m made of,
stories of the many people come and gone.
I know the trace down through the soil
and the deep peace of winter when I sleep.
My seasons are not like the city around me
and I struggle with incongruence.
I’ve found the path between the vertical root
and the way up with life force
into branches and leaves and the sunlit sky.
I love the wind and the rain as they stir me
with the awakening that comes each day
and around me younger trees but trees in their own right
that once were invisible, the hope of my seed.
When I see his old face in the mirror,
leaning forward in the way of his fathers,
bowing to the years and the coming embrace,
a part of me wants to let go to the decline
and feel the ease the earth will bring,
but another part, a strong one, wants to live
and breathe in the air and beauty of the forest.
I pull back the weight of my skull
against the old and tired muscles of my neck.
My shoulders are already back but my head must follow
and then I am aright, not lifted by the pride
I’ve always feared, but by desire, in assurance
and with the ancient bark and branch of the many trees before me,
stand in the light and continue to become a human being.
http://donhynes.com/blog/?p=2290