Beneath The Cedar
by Sarah Reardon

The ruddy trunk outlasts ten thousand trees
Like cedar mid the winter’s withered land.
Grown over years, a column made to stand,
And not to shiver with the passing breeze
And not to sway wherever time decrees:
Such ones are rare within this dying land,
And hard to find. For I have searched and scanned:
The only tree of health, my eye now sees.

Indeed, like alabaster set on gold
He stands, and far and firm his boughs extend,
and under him I need not fear the cold.
But first I must acquire the heart to bend
Beneath his boughs, and from that place behold
The cedar’s strength: yes, first, I must descend.