For Rhoda, my forever friend, my morning perusals, meditations and haunting kinship with the tiny beech tree which I see every morning through the third bottom window pane, as I sit on the old worn leather sofa in our sitting room, drinking our beloved Stumptown HollerMountain coffee, me from my old $3 artisan coffee mug purchased along the Rhine River in Rudesheim six decades ago, the birds a flutter and feeding, the merry squirrels spiraling the tree trunks, yonder sets my kin, my friend, the tiny beech tree:

Little Beech Tree…….January 16, 2024

Yonder in the woods it sets

Knowing my heart will not forget

It, still ensheathed in coppery leaves

Implying warmth in winter’s chill

Beckoning my weary heart be still

And thus now so my soul believes

The warm magic of hope its presence weaves

Each bright new morn through winter’s eves.

Nature’s gift.

On another morning:

Oh little beech

I do beseech

Your coppery shade over me to reach

And hold me sheltered close to teach

That hope awaits within your arms

Peace, beauty, and safety from all harms

Until that burst of shimmering green

Which come the spring like a budding screen

Shading your trunk, sunlight filtering in

A whole new world doth now begin

A beacon of hope for all things new

Golden and glorious indomitable you.

My friend.

And yet another morning:

Rooted here we will survive

Rooted here we will gloriously thrive

Rooted here we are fantastically alive

My coppery shaded tiny tree

All my hope lies in thee

Through all the world’s ravaging weather

And the ravages of men’s mad endeavors

We, rooted here, will always rise again.

Never fear the wild and furious world

Though fury unbounded at thee may be hurled

For we will always arise ever as kin,

Always and forever, my noble Friend.

And yet another morning:

Planted in place we will thrive

Forever and always gloriously alive

We will never see a green high mountain

Nor e’er a far-flung sand pearled beach

Yet we will never feel the world out of our reach

For we are the crest of a flourishing fountain

Eternally our roots run deep and ever wide

E’er intertwined with ceaseless friends

Golden threaded together side by side

Our coexistence ceaselessly and endlessly mends

All broken hearts and broken limbs

Sending from deepest depths to high in the sky

Seemingly voiceless we ride on the wind

Rising rising rising and never ask why

Our journey has from the beginning ne’er an end.

I have my photographs of the tiny beech tree, but I plan to paint a picture of it, as well.

Judith Cashion Godfrey

February 22, 2024