By ALICIA WOODWARD, guest colmnist

In the heart of Nashville, on the Salt Creek Trail, is a sycamore tree that would stop most observant travelers in their tracks. If they heed the call to come closer, they are rewarded with gifts of man and nature’s creative collaboration.

The tree stands about a hundred feet tall with two big trunks of equal size rising from a massive, exposed root system. The thick roots naturally formed what looks like a bench, perfect for a person to rest, or think or pray.

Upon closer examination, someone had carved the sturdy roots at the end of the bench to look like a large, benevolent hand, gently hugging anyone who stopped to sit under the sycamore on the bank of the Salt Creek.

As I sat basking in the beauty of nature and art, I was struck by the relationship between the two. I imagined the sculptor reverently asking the sycamore for its permission to cut into its roots to create something that would celebrate its magnificence.

[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]

When I rose from the comforting spot, I noticed a piece of paper hanging by a nail on the primary trunk of the tree. I stood on the bench to get a closer look. At the top of the page it read: “Friends, if you like this poem, please take a copy.” The poem was titled “View of Life” by Andrew Hubbard.

Ceremoniously, I removed the white laminated paper off the rusty nail. My heart soared before I even read the poem. Under the fading fall canopy of a sycamore, I felt I’d stumbled upon a secret society of poets, artists and mystics as inspired by nature as I.

The irony of a poet posting a poem on a tree amused me. At a time when people hastily post their every thought on social media and the Internet, I found Hubbard’s tree post refreshingly clever, quaint and genuine.

On the back of his poem, Hubbard wrote that this month marks five years since he began hanging poems on the tree “partly in an attempt to publicize myself, and partly just for fun.” He posts a poem every other month and replaces copies as they are taken.

With my eyes on my gift from the sycamore, I slowly walked down the Salt Creek Trail feeling leaves crunch underfoot. The dappled sun danced through yellowing limbs onto the page, and wild sounds along the creek vibrated as I read Hubbard’s poem and thought about the “tiny mark” I might make.

View of Life

Of all nature’s metaphors

The one that takes my breath

Is the blast of October wind

(Sometimes with a slap of rain)

Tearing loose a million leaves

And twirling them to crisp drifts

That will fade and collapse

Under the stern weight of winter.

On every tree each fallen leaf

Left a tiny mark, a place

For a new leaf to push

Its way into sunlight

When the infinitely slow, infinitely certain

Pulse of spring sings to it.

The ones who went before,

Leaves and people,

Have little trace or memory

And there is sadness in that

But grandeur also.

Alicia Woodward and her husband are empty-nesters who live on Sweetwater Lake in Brown County. She taught middle school literature and language arts for more than 25 years and writes a weekly blog, The Simple Swan, inspired by the wisdom, beauty and simplicity of nature. Subscribe at thesimpleswan.com. She can be reached at [email protected].