I gaze at the top of an old catalpa tree struggling to stay alive in our farmyard. There, death reclines in the bark’s woodpecker-splintered holes and swings among limbs naked of late-spring leaves.
Lower on the tree, life clings with cat’s claws amid the mix of leaved and bared branches.And there, near the bottom, I admire new life sprouting from the trunk on twigs heavy with oversized leaves and hope.In the catalpa rests assurance that, though age steals leaves from branches of my many seasons, from within will continue sprouting new life and vigor to gather energies of another year’s sun.
Rural Routes 