The Tree Path
The Tree Path
The Old Elm by the River
Shrugging in the flight of its leaves,
it is dying. Death is slowly
standing up in its trunk and branches
like a camouflaged hunter. In the night
I am awakened by one of its branches
crashing down, heavy as a wall and then
lie sleepless, the world changed.
That is a life I know the country by.
Wendell Berry,
from The Old Elm by the River
in Trees be Company
