Approaching Demise

Suzanne Morris

November 6, 2022

No one could

say for sure

how long the tree 

has been standing.

Long enough, perhaps, to have

felt the ground shake when

trains went rumbling down

the tracks nearby

on what is now an empty roadbed

alongside a Texas byway,

where wild crimson clover

spreads like a fever every spring

and along which youthful punks

speed by in pickup trucks,

tossing out aluminum cans

and styrofoam cups

that two people older than

they imagine ever being will

bend down and collect

for the morning trash.

Given its height and breadth,

the tree likely dates at least

from around World War II,

making it as old as we are.

It stands apart in the field now,

as if shunned by the 

sweet gums and pines

and other, younger, oaks

clustered not far away.

This was not always so,

however, judging by how

crooked and stunted are

some of its branches.

Truth to tell, the tree is

not very pretty,

not the one we’d choose for

having our ashes scattered

in its shade,

with boughs so twisted

it looks as if it

started to turn and run,

but changed its mind.

Besides, it may not be

alive for much longer.

We notice more and more 

blackening branches, and

its leaves, a pale and sickly green,

are becoming sparse as the hair

on an old man’s head.

Still, there is a kind of

stateliness about the tree

on an autumn afternoon when

the sun slants through

those aging branches.

Suzanne Morris is a novelist and poet.  Following eight published works of fiction, her poems have appeared in several anthologies, and in poetry journals including The Texas Poetry Assignment, The New Verse News, Arts Alive San Antonio, Stone Poetry, and Creatopia Magazine.  She lives in Cherokee County with her husband and their part-hound dog Asher.