Poem - Greed

At season’s end I trod the wood

A respite from winter’s touch my sole desire

Comfort against wrathful pain

Fallen man, the cause of loss

The world’s magnanimous beauty unfurls

Like Solomon’s splendor, the leaves beguile

Golden coins, so high above

Good to the eye, I resolve to make them mine

Nearby I behold a squat old tree, no glamor in its name

Its boughs protected me during summer’s storms

An evergreen, unchanging still

Normalcy in the midst of new extravagance

How do I attain the comfort

Of these shimmering jewels on high

Perhaps a wait at the provider’s feet

Will provide healing against the coming loss

With time the force of nature speaks

And bends the boughs above

My heart’s desire, tumbling down

Now just dead and brown.

Perhaps a climb to these heights unknown

To gain my golden greatness

Others have dared the passage before

Some have fallen, but the reward seems greater

Tearing bark consumes my flesh

I wonder at the cost

The golden leaves, proximity alluring

But my strength is like dawn’s mist

At last I’m among the goal of my endeavor

Yet triumph gives ground to confusion

On closer inspection my flawless comfort

Stands somehow diminished

Still, I will claim my long-sought prize

Recklessly, my arm extends

The golden leaves pull free, and I

Descend in gravity’s unfeeling embrace

What has stopped this final plunge

Interposed between I and Death’s hand

The bountiful, aged evergreen!

Arrested in its rough caress

As winter comes I make my bed

Beneath the old squat tree

Dreams fill my head, what might have been

The last of my prize wilts away

The forest now is dead and brown

Buried in winter’s icy embrace

The emerald beauty of my evergreen

Shines in this world of loss

A revelation strikes me, too late to change the past

I failed to note the old tree’s worth

Yet as winter comes, and I breathe my last,

The evergreen still surrounds.

Randall Madden

March 31, 2014