The Tree

The Tree

Olga Dugan

 (for Mom and Missie)

In the northeast corner
of my grandmother’s garden
stood the origin story
of why I write poems

there, the brownest tree making
everything superlative around it
rose high above the darkest purple
of concord grapes draping
the fence behind

for me, it seemed this tree wore every
shade of brown blended perfectly

just five, I froze leagues below it
looking up, up, up, thinking
if I could grip its roughest
carob hickory bark

I’d ascend it like a climbing wall—
no wings, I’d love the work—
and at its deepest chocolate
umber height

sit embraced in the greenest leaves
waiting in the bluest sky
to tell the most awesome Creator
of maple, pecan, cedar, and walnut
without Whom was not any
sapling or color made
that was made

what a fine work is this tree and
me and the whole garden of world
full of such unmatchables, then
when drawn nearest
within the distance of a glimpse

I’d kiss a blush
redder than the Hallelujah rose

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Olga Dugan
Cave Canem Poet & Professor

Olga has been recently published in Relief Journal, Channel (Ireland), Sky Island Journal, Cathexis Northwest Press, The Write Launch, Grand Little Things, E-Verse Radio, Ariel Chart, The Windhover, and The Sunlight Press. Articles on poetry, drama, and cultural memory appear in The Journal of African American History, The North Star, and in Emory University's “Meet the Fellows.”

Photography by Robin Spielman