(Here is a note sent to Ruth Grubbs, who wrote a poem about this tree earlier this year in April 2009, while taking a writing class at John C. Campbell Folk School.)
Waiting for Rebirth
Never turns branches loose
this scraggly old tree in the side yard.
Hovering like a Brillo pad
unabashed over the driveway
she has all the arms of her birth
and all the twigs sprung from these.
She has bird nests of seasons past
hidden well in the scrub.
She’s naked now, but promises new growth
and more twigs to her full figure,
blushing green leaves to flush out her beauty.
by Ruth Faulkner Grubbs
Written in class at John C. Campbell Folk School
April 2009, accepted and forthcoming in Poetry Guild Anthology
Look Now. She's a Buckeye Tree.
Students in my last writing class took home a lucky buckeye in their pockets.
