The Sentinel Trees

The Sentinel Trees


Morning, bright sun and warmth, the beginning
of a new century But “dying” seems
the one right word.
We sit in the back yard,
Tall loblolly pines looking on,
whispering to each other
As the wind picks up and the so long dead
come back to visit.
Earlier at the first hint of approaching sunlight,
I ventured out beneath the trees, pushed
Back the thick undergrowth that separates
the lawn from all that wonderment of persimmon,
palmetto, mustang grapes And ventured down
to a perfect lake of green algae,
Cypress knees, water tupelos, a small overhang just
A few feet above the swirls of green, below tall
Cypress trees standing alone, guarding snakes
And armadillos, lamenting, perhaps, their own dead,
At the base of the forest slope, and wetting their roots
In the shallow water leading to the slow moving river.
And there, I mourned my dead from an old war
Left over from a time when I was young. I see
Their names on the black gash on a tourist mall,
See their faces in the stagnant, teeming with life,
Water that sits quietly beside tall trees. Jesus God,
Watch over them, I pray, before turning back
To Adirondack chairs to talk of other days, people I do
Not know but who make up the generations of my life.
My aunt, whose husband died just three weeks ago
Today, joins us, fresh tears added to the old. “When
A man and a woman have been married 54 years,”
She says, “God should let them go out together
Instead of leaving one behind to weep.”

A long century, adding up to you and me,
To tall trees that speak of us and all who went
Before, to still waters with green molds washing
the base of everything we can see.


H. Palmer Hall

Posted over on WLA Journal