one in a hundred million
swimmers reaches the egg,
seeds fare only little better it seems,
save one which landed in just the right warm cow droppings
in my pasture, took root, fought its way through two wars,
too many dread droughts to count, a fire
that took a third my herd and a hired hand,
the passing of my wife, and some numbered portion
of my life

under a harvest moon, black armed and brittle,
it still stands, stardust reincarnated times infinity
more than once I took axe to field, but
its execution was always stayed

now the tool's too heavy to swing; the blade blunted by time
and this night, I can see the tree's shifting shadows on silver ground, receding silently in lunar light, preparing for a dawn it will greet, with or without me