The Cypress Tree

In the centre of a lake sits an old cypress tree, it is singular and alone.

The thing sits on a sand island,

one nipple of sand poking up out of the lake.

I have walked the lake and I always stare at the singular cypress tree.

Its limbs are gnarled and in summer I see it

evergreen

its branches and roots covered in moss and crawling with beetles crawling

In  winter the same twisting limbs remind me of my grandfather’s cane

           

It is the patriarch of an ancient family, who once covered the slopes of all the mountains, evergreen. Somehow here, it alone, gets everything it needs.

The water is saline the rocks on the cliff sides are filled with it, the minerals leaching the water.

There is a quarry nearby, but somehow the effluent never enters here.

Elsewhere the the water is acidic. Whatever grows quickly wilts and decomposes back onto the white rocks.

The lake is surrounded on all sides by tall bald mountains. I have heard that those who  dwell inside those mountain halls have an affinity for the tree.

They bow before it they guard this last creeping life on their bone hard shores.

                In spring the white helmets adorned by the mountain peaks melt.

A flood of mud and water spills down the veins of the mountains and each year, just enough collects in the deepest part of the valley

 And so the lake is renewed and reborn.

Some years the sand black sand island is obscured by the water and becomes like packed mud.

                The limbs of the cypress are an elder man’s with their exposed fatty veins. Its skin is porous and glad for the water, but it does not seek out its fill.

The cypress is a creature of patience. Even in those years where the island it rests upon sits so tantalizingly near to the water. 

It sits still and precise. 

eternal.