I've been standing in this creekbed
For more than a hundred and fifty years,
Watching my world flow ever by,
It is my historian and my seer.

I struggled mightily,
In the strong winds that were my youth.
And my frame grew ever so slowly,
And I did not bring forth good fruit.

To those who stopped by to see me,
In them I invoked nothing striking.
It seems that larger limbs,
Were really more to their liking.

And I stood there year after year,
Building a ring upon more rings,
As the world changed itself all around me,
And I kept our local history.

In the beginning it was the tribal men,
Who came to take their water away.
It wasn't long until the soldiers stopped by,
With their horses to rest for the day.

And then some fellows built a bridge,
Across the tiny stream,
It must have been maybe a hundred years ago,
When came the trains,
Powered by engines of steam.

All the while, I stood by and watched,
And then one year, cast my seed to the wind.
It must have found a companion downstream,
For soon, two saplings shot forth,
Somewhere down around the bend.

I stood as straight as I could,
And in the summer I draped great shade.
Soon the rumors of my enormous stature,
Reached those two saplings in the glade.

It wasn't too long until I could see them,
And I knew that they could see me,
We were the proudest family in the creekbed,
For as far as the eye could see.

But then came that awful springtime,
Was it twenty years past? I just don't know,
When an autumn of torrential rains,
Was followed by the deep winter snows.

In the springtime, did the water rise,
Higher than ever before,
And it ripped the roots of my offspring,
Right from the streambed floor.

Oh, my Lord, how I mourned for them,
And I wailed from so deep within,
But my cries were forever unanswered,
And soon The Age of Loneliness did begin.

And so I just watched the change of the seasons,
A mere shell of my former self,
For I missed so greatly my children,
Who alone constituted my worldly wealth.

And then, it was so odd, just yesterday,
A simple one, like any other day,
I gazed to my right,
Down beyond the glade,
And saw a sight so beautiful, that I cannot say.
It was none other than those two saplings of mine,
Who had grown so tall and straight.

And so I erupted from deep within,
Or as best as I could do,
And I warmed to what surely was a smile,
As I gazed upon those two.
I took one limb, that doubles as my arm,
And I drew it into a curl,
And then uttered well, and quite to myself,
"You know, all is right with the world."