Soul Trees
By Randall Mullins
On the last day of September
I walk a half block
to visit eight trees I have gotten to know.
They are left from a larger forest,
still cared for by a third-generation owner.
He took these trees into his heart
and it shows.
I saw them first five years ago
from our fourth-floor window,
just after we moved here
nine trees then, all evergreens,
reaching for the sky,
towering above everything around them.
I walk from tree to tree,
lean against each one,
put by hands on its bark,
and touch the bark with my cheek.
I speak no words.
I only receive.
The trees teach from
a silence beneath silence.
They hold and offer
all I need
in the cool air
of late afternoon.
No words, no words here.
Only a touch of the eternal
beyond eternal,
the blessed unknown
where we are fully known,
where we are fully at home.