Maybe I’m the paradox, a reality defying kind of ephemeral, something who stands before but beyond window view.

That’s why you can’t grasp me, I’m more phantom than logic, more feeling than reason, and I think it’s fair assessment

upon my desire to remain rooted. So impossibly the oak stands resolute, a fixture in the howling hurricane, beheld

to the wind, the debris, and the weeping. I have had time to adapt, to grow, to find alternatives, and I stay among concrete

and fettered notions. The truth is, I can wither and curl, or strain to break my hold upon the earth and walk until my last leaf falls.

But what am I without the wind in my branches, and the shade above my roots? What am I without the song you gift me

and the growth you’ve supplied? How dare I entertain an idea of a lack of you when I hold you so dear? Storms shake trees,

but that means nothing when your sun shines– that means nothing for all the good you’ve birthed, even if you can’t fathom

how my limbs reach toward you still.