The Poet Sings of a Poet’s Tree

What kind of tree is your
poet’s tree?

Is it boab or oak
paperbark or willow?

Does it dance with Mandela
mediate with Mahatma?

Is it a haven for
Maya Angelou’s caged birds?

Does your tree sing
of how to
make a walking stick
through pain
with words to make the feet
lighter?

Does it encase your feet in
shoe bark
to travel on the heated ground
of despair
through the cold of ignorance’s
ice
help you to slide to the leaves of
peace?

How many in your poet’s family
tree went to war and
created odes to soldier’s
who bloodied lay
at the base of this tree
– lost?

Will the nightingale
sing from the branches
of your poet’s tree
guide you
into the heart of things
-take you out beyond this side
of a worm hole
into the galaxy where peace
birds fly?

What kind of tree is…