by Lois Lorimer
Alligatored on the woodlot floor
your everglade eye watches
as your wisdom etches air.
Free to grow old, no saw quartered you
for fences or stunted you
into an embarrassment of posts.
Nor were you cut down
in your prime, cedar-stripped
for a bay-skimming canoe.
You observed the complications
of the woodlot, your roots deeper
and political as young trees fought for light.
Your forest matured as all things do,
saplings nudged you to move on.
So with a havoc of vines
your tangled life took you down
where your speechless weight comforts insects,
works magic with leaf mold and moss.
— from Juniper Volume 2, Issue 2