you see the way that tree
reaches towards the sky?
for many seasons that was me
stretching to heaven with feet rooted in earth
awaiting the rains of grace to grow me higher
till one day a woodsman approached
chopped me down sawed me into
pieces and burned me
a stump no longer yearns or fears fire
it merely dies of severed beliefs
the beauty of that kind of change
is the open sky it unfurls