Bronze on November Hickory -- Poem

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Molten bronze could not brighten more than
Morning sunlight
Crashing on November's hickory tree.

Civilizations were built and razed through the melting bronze,
Making bowls and scimitars, anklets and crowns.

But here, boys made forts.
We leaned logs against the hickory tree,
Then more around those --
Palisades around our little room,
Small enough for skinny boys in shirtless summers,
Too small for prying adults.

We gathered hickory nuts to throw,
Still in their green husks,
Each a round treasure turning green to brown.
A scent of earth and tree gave a high of nature
Potent in our noses, we coming back to that smell
Like a peyote that connected our
Dirt-stained bodies with the ground we loved.

Hickory limbs still reach out, offering those bronze leaves.
Their kinks and crooks
Impervious to our hardened bare feet.
Adults would cut the limbs for fire.
Mammaw would keep a hickory switch to threaten us,
Holding one arm while swinging with the other.
We would chase each other. The sting from
Brothers and cousins a reward, not a punishment.

We grew too old for hickory forts and walked away.
Seasons brought new nuts, new leaves, brown nuts, brown leaves.
I forgot the tree until that autumn morning when
The tree exploded again into my life
With bronze leaves alive.
Not looking away,
Like Moses on Horeb,

I remembered for a moment the sacred past
Anklets and crowns for who I am today.
And as the rising sun turned bronze to brown,
My world returned to me --
The memory of hickory wisped away --
Yet the tree remains.


Be strong, and courageous.
Dixi et salvavi animam meam
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