Ode to a young apple tree

You were born:

As an immanent idea,
As a pinprick of potential,
As a memory-bearing universe.
You were placed beneath the surface
Of life
And came forth as life:

You identified yourself as a node
Through which the Divine
Chose to exist,
And you proclaimed
This nodal outpouring
Steadfastly and faithfully --

You were a seedling.

You traveled:

On the back of a truck, crowded with
Other nodes of Divine efflux,
You moved at speeds
Of which seedlings,
For eons,
Never dreamed.
You glided along exit ramps
And paused at stoplights,
Watching the spinning cylinders
Of cigarette butts and soda cans
Roll toward extinction
Even as you rolled toward some
New beginning
Or quiet,
Malnourished end.

You were chosen:

A purple ribbon was twined through
Your waxen branches.
A tag reading "SOLD"
was stapled to the ribbon --
An award, an epaulet,
A bestowal of
Arboreal anamnesis.

You would move again:
Your roots would find room,
Your branches would breathe their own air
And fix their future directions,
And all the potential within you
Would soon become a river
Flowing toward your extremities
And back into the secret ground
Of your being.

You waited:

Confined in your plastic cone, you stood
Within sight
Of neighbor and soul mate:
Three inches of rain;
A night in the garage to avoid frost;
Winds from north and south:
The thousand small paroxysms of Spring,

And still,
You stood patiently,
Smelling the earth
Into which you would be placed,
Feeling the stippled shadow
Of a small, secluded home.

You were planted:

Our hands grasped our meager tools
And clawed the marbled earth,
Pulled up ribs of clay.
We sculpted a vault of humus,
Laid a quilt of topsoil,
Then a pillow of peat
With treats laid underneath.

And now:

Your roots,
Bent into ovals
Of artificial confinement, begin to turn outward
To greet the life
That will move through you.

You have been brave and patient.
You have been resolute and modest.
You have been, simply and supremely,
A tree.

You are home.

--Mr. Gobley