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This is a poem about how nature interacts and endures. Look at a towering tree in the forest--don't you admire it deep down inside? Published by Coffee Press Journal in 2005. Copyright to J. Donald Coonrod.

Spidery black, looming branches
singular as a web but larger,
much larger, an ominous filigree
heavily weighted in winter
with snows and silvery ice.

Splendid in bitter cold even
pharaohs could not survive
in the afterlife--
branched by chaos theory
and crowned with sunsets
of rose and ivory.

Juglans stands
torn by winds, like
the flesh of forest deer,
Canis cornered, desperate,
black feet stomping
as death draws near,
their warm blood full of fear,
melting the snow.

Juglans survives with curious,
fissured bark canyons, stained
dark at their core, wild as a
poet's vision, amputated limbs
and a hidden history, a rhyme
of miraculous life, seed and
center.

Life cuddled in earthly strife,
its soul soars into night's
stars, flickering beyond the
spidery periphery of its black
looming branches.

Author's note: Juglans nigra is
the black walnut.