Praise Song for a Plane Tree
Catherine Jagoe
For the plane tree (also known as American sycamore) planted under
the direction of Aldo Leopold on Arbor Drive, Madison, Wisconsin.
Heartstopper, thunderstriker,
piebald tree with the alabaster arms,
already you are ancient.
Even when young, you were in tatters.
You are husked, scabbed, leprous,
peeled and peeling, a fortress
in a sea of white snakeroot.
Like the brindled cat who visits every day,
you are chestnut and taupe, dun
and umber, antelope, parchment,
bone-marrow, pith.
With your bark, you tell me it is
okay to have many names,
many skins, many strata;
to be a jumble of jigsaw pieces,
none of which fit, although all do.
Teach me to be pregnant with myself,
my own becoming, to bear stretch marks,
striations, moving tectonic plates,
to slough myself piecemeal day
by day and never look back.
Teach me to be sinuous:
how to change direction,
go baroque when constrained
by the press of others.
Teach me that growth means shedding,
loss. So many daily losses.
It means standing shucked and naked
to the world, exposed to view,
but without shame, because aren’t we all
dying, aren’t we all beautiful?
Tree, speak to me in blotch and mottle,
dapple and darklight.
Arrest me, gentle me, teach
me to breathe.
Teach me also to be stubborn
when ravaged by others’ hungry mouths,
to cultivate hope every spring
even when blighted over and over,
new shoots withering to witch’s brooms.
Show me the ways my cracks
will be secured invisibly
with a latticework of light
like spidersilk.
Windtree oceaning, earth-anchored
hub and holdfast, teach me
windshimmer, windseethe, windsurf,
how to be windfirm.
Rainseeder, whisperer,
heatshield me, hearten and relieve me,
shade me, tent me, nestle
me unseen at your muscled
roots, brawny as hawsers. Endure,
endear me to you, who are my kith and kin.
Conceal me, heal me, cleanse,
anneal and feed me.
You, my common wealth, my commonweal.
Bide your sweet, Cretacean time. Abide.
Abide with me.
School me in survival.
Teach me to broaden,
deepen, keep on
reaching for the light.
Oh forebearer, forgive
my oblivion. Outlast, outlive me.
Catherine Jagoe is a translator, poet and essayist. Read more.