Majestic Grove

A grove of towering trees three thousand years old,
all winter long a snowy waste, no end in sight,
where those trees
stand tall in the snow-covered expanse.

One winter,
when one of those trees
fell, caught in an avalanche,
the Good Lord
hugged it to his breast.
Softly he bade it:
Rest, my child, rest. . .

The Good Lord
remembered
when it had been just a tiny seed
and knew the young avatars
springing up from its enormous roots.

Rest, rest:
that day the Good Lord's love
was a loving consolation.
Supposing
there were a bird that had sung for three thousand years,
it would sing: Rest, rest.
For after three thousand years, that tree
must have been supremely weary.

That tree,
a member of the redwood species
known as Sequoia,
henceforth a sleeping saint
for the next three thousand years,
will enjoy the most blissful sleep and repose.

In the majestic grove
this winter too
among far-reaching endless snowy wastes.