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