Tree Planting

by Christine J. Schiff
About Poetry Forum
Honorable Mention, December 2009
Judged by Majid Naficy


It is tree planting time again,
this time a Kauri for Ann.
Some people die slowly,
day after day as they live.
Some die quickly after
living too fast.
Ann died gently as she had lived.
There was time for us to talk,
with the quiet ease
of old friends
about her favourite tree.

Together we had planted in the past
trees for others,
now it was time for her
to decide which one I’d plant
alone in her memory.
The Kauri grows slowly,
lives for a thousand years.
She said the wind would
whistle though hers,
and so it does, so it does……