Currents

These trees are surging skyward,

flowing with all the grace and strength

of the earth’s greatest rivers,

only more slowly, quietly, steadily.

Eddies and ripples traced by ridges and creases

lie etched upon their weathered bark;

Trickling, babbling,

rushing, cascading;

around scars and gnarls

like old stones resting on a riverbed.

The great current flows through

their stretching roots and branches,

like great veins and arteries,

into the sky from the soil

and into the soil from the sky.