Touch the roughness of my natures bark,
Through the needle ****** of my out-stretched (branched) legacy,
How I once spired toward the heavens,
But now am filled with rot and moldy decay,


All ways had my arms stretched out,
Green with envy,
Of having you not by my side,
But seen in the company of theirs,


Yet now my ****** have softened,
As I have altered from a rugged envious green,
To a mellow yellowed,
And the last of me is drying up inside,


I still stand alone,
My rise upward has all but continued onward,
My branched out legacy as you now see,
Is now wasting away,


I am a near naked skeleton,
Soon to become no more,
Oh, how at my life’s end shall I do what I refused to do in my pride,
For life shall surely break my back… and I left to lean on others,


Their arms shall hold me up with all their strength,
But their help is now futile,
For the weight of my life’s gluttony,
Will break their resolve and push me down ward,


That is now the legacy of my life’s route,
But before I collapse,
With a rage of hot red… I shall become,
My needles will one last time harden,


As I frantically poke my anger into all who dare reach into me,
The rugged skin of my stature may have partly flaked off,
But I want not that my soul core be reached,
By any who wish to reach in and dissect it,


My strength or weakness need not their assistance,
Nor their explanation of matters concerning it,
I was once a great tree in an endless forest of trees,
But it was you alone… that had made me special.

(c) Joseph D R-H Palmateer