Poetry: The Tree

The man who never 

had to toil
To gain and farm

his patch of soil
Who never had to

win his share
Of sun and sky and

light and air
Never became a manly man
But lived and died

as he began

 

Good timber does not

grow with ease
The stronger wind,

the stronger trees
The further sky,

the greater length
More the storm, the

more the strength
By sun and cold,

by rain and snow
In trees and men good

timbers grow

 

Where thickest lies the

forest growth
We find the patriarchs of both
And they hold counsel

with the stars
Whose broken branches

show the scars
Of many winds and

much of strife
This is the

common law of life

 

Douglas Malloch
1923

E. Laurence Bake