Black Locust Tree
I exited my car
Like I have done
For more than eleven years
Among Black locust trees
Mostly east of my house
This rooted slow deliberate lovefest
Which my neighbor explained
Are common roots underground
And today,
The big ones
Who were
Long before me
Stark, tall and thin
Like a thirteen-year-old boy
Who couldn’t gain an ounce if he wanted
Waiting
And upward
These rooted small hands to heaven at the top
Lower limbs left to the ground
This stark broken natural whole
Of this one
And as I look around
Perhaps someway like me
Every black locust tree.
— Neil Frederick, Brown County