IV. The Diving Post
Lone and jutting from the wave brushed sea
I waited long for him to climb up me.
Once a summer he’d make a single trip
To my lonely beach to take a dip.
He would swim a hundred feet from shore
To take a single dive and not one more.
III. The Pier Column
Barnacled, I raised my load so light
In my row I stood so true and right
And once a month she’d be coming down
To the coast by this fast dying town.
She’d walk the planks past me down to the end
And watch the sea pass by just like a friend.
II. The Evergreen
A blaze of green I stood so proud and tall
Until that day when my turn came to fall.
A man came with an eye patch and a brace
And looked at me with sun upon his face.
He felled me there, in land becoming stark
And took off his glove to touch my gnarled bark.
I. The Sapling
Awake with waiting till my time would come
To be between his finger and his thumb
And from his bag of forest he grabbed me
To place me in the soil to form a tree.
Upon a stump nearby, he sat to eat
And shed some silent tears into his meat.
V. The Carving
Now I stand upon a shelf austere
With memories in moments through the years.
She found me there along the beach one day
A chunk of driftwood, weathered, dried and grey.
She carved and whittled something out of me,
Something always waiting for her to see.
