I am but a Tree in Your Garden

Leaves rustle

the scent of coming rain

is on the breeze

thunder breaks the silence in the distance

but I don't run for cover

there is no cover where I dwell

out in the open

like a book on a library pedestal

opened and exposed
unable to turn its own pages

to hide its deepest secrets

You read me like a book

but I suppose it is only fair

as You did make me

of course I filled the pages

but not all events were of my doing

though I participated

whether willingly or not

in every one listed therein

I wish some pages could be torn out

could blow away in the coming storm

I wish the ink wasn't indelible

so rain could wash away the hard words

but this book is alive

rooted deeply like a tree

there is no changing it

I can only hope that in seasons to come

my inner rings will be covered

by outer rings more pleasing

and when it's been written in its entirety
my hope is that in the end

the beginning will have found redemption

the evil will have been turned to good...

my leaves rustle for another season

grown to a fullness that cannot be changed

I drink deeply from the underground stream

and when the fall comes

I shall release the stories of this year

like leaves from my branches

they will float aimlessly on the breeze

to land in Your hands

You will have a season to read them

and I, a season to contemplate

before I try again

with the coming of my next spring

to overcome the storms of the past

when lightening threatened to destroy

and the larva of evil gnawed away under my bark

another season to dwell in Your garden

and I shall endure the storms

until I grow too old to absorb

the nutrients in this life giving soil

and then

on the day I fall

You will hear it

the loggers will come to cart me away

I will burn in the funeral pyre

and then it will be known

by the fragrance I give off

whether I am pleasing toYou or not

but for now

my leaves rustle in Your breezes

and I await the coming rain