Arbor Vitae

John Tuttle

The land once was full of trees now felled,
A thriving community was the wood,
Drinking from unseen wells, in sunlight they reveled,
Those stumps where once the living stood.

I see this tantalizing yesterday,
Bathed in glowing, nostalgic light,
And a hilltop Tree showed the Way,
Gave shade with boughs; its blossoms, fragrant delight.

Encircling It are many a shoot and stalk
Conifers, laden, pining for the light of Daystar
Lend resiny incense to the breeze and chalk
Up their offspring to winds blowing from afar.

White birches, pearly shafts amid fields of towering ebony,
The ivory trunk, the albino bark, that living skeletal sentinel
With skin of flaky white and occasional dark stripe, bony
Features belying the budding life that Spring shall retell.

The oak, with sprawling covetous limbs, stretches
And with expansive girth nourishing the acorn,
Its root system delves deep, sufficient water fetches
Till the autumn leaves of the deciduous trees be shorn.

Oh Arbor Vitae, Prince of Trees, sprung from the family Cypress
In Your prime, they cut You down, oh salvific Tree.
Oh if I could be but a branch, Your life making mine blessed
As Your enemies hacked at You, Your sap running free.

I recall so keenly, for I was there you see
When they stripped from You the unblemished bark
But I’ve come to know Your sacrifice — for me,
To cherish Your life-blood, a chrism, from each wound and mark.

The denuded slopes are not entirely a vast emptiness
But new greenery fleshes out all the wood
A sign grows from Arbor Vitae’s stump to witness:
Behold! A strapping sapling in place of the Rood!

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 John Tuttle is a Catholic writer and photographer with a passion for truth and beauty. His writing has been featured by An Unexpected Journal, VoegelinView, Heart of Flesh Literary Journal, The Curator, and other outlets. He is an editor and contributor to the book Tolkien & Faith. John, his wife Ellen, and their family live in Illinois.