[oats]

Circles


Circles

Days move slowly for the tree, the reach of its branches
Has shaded biblical passages - pastors reading "ashes to ashes"
Too many times. Webbed designs of rings in its trunk
Equal the months the planet circled with a slant on its axis
Each season a new day. As a younger tree it creaked under cruel weight
Tears leaked to its roots once the man's feet couldn't move -
Traces around the man's neck, enough to prove he was too young
A single ring, from a rope. To trees he was reduced to a crude stump
But new days gave way to new seasons, from darkness earth traversed into light
Where the man swung from a noose his son swings on a tire - the circle of life