Broken Trees
by Victor Kazanjian

Remember back
to that strange and wondrous day,
that April day
     when spring suddenly became winter
and a thick blanket of snow
     covered this very place.
Amidst the memory of beauty and wonder,
of fun and frolic,
looms another image,
a haunting image,
that has captured my mind...

I see broken trees.

Broken trees...

Big, strong trees
     standing amidst a carpet of fallen branches;

Proud, powerful trees
     with gaping holes where healthy limbs once grew;

Trees wounded
     by the weight that they were asked to bear.

They are hard to find now, these broken trees.
We have cleaned most of them up,
perhaps because they were too difficult
     for us to look at
     in their obvious imperfection.

But as for me,
I have come to love these broken trees.
For they are me.

Broken,
scarred,
wounded,
and yet still firmly rooted in the earth,
still defiantly alive.

How beautiful
to be
like one of these,
these magnificent, broken trees.

O my God,
I pray that we have not taught you to despise broken trees...
for they are you too.

Broken and beautiful,
imperfect and yet complete.

As you see your image change,
as days and months and years
add scrapes and scars and wounds to your flesh,
and to the flesh of your flesh,
I pray that you too will come to love broken trees.

And so scatter now,
     with the winds.
Your becoming awaits.
Go now,
and may your roots grow deep and strong
where ever you land.

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