The Copper Beech
–Marie Howe
Immense, entirely itself,
it wore that yard like a dress,with limbs low enough for me to enter it
and climb the crooked ladder to whereI could lean against the trunk and practice being alone.
One day, I heard the sound before I saw it, rain fell
darkening the sidewalk.Sitting close to the center, not very high in the branches,
I heard it hitting the high leaves, and I was happy,watching it happen without it happening to me.