Poem Composed While Driving Through a Parade of Old Oaks

Driving along
The old truck route
To my eye it's
These misshapen oaks
That best demonstrate
How to cultivate virtue
Out of necessity
Having taken root
Where they did

And suffering through
The annual indignity
Of having their limbs
Hacked way back
To make room for
The telephone lines
Passing overhead

How ungainly they look
But still managing to thrive
Unlikely as it is they'll
Be transplanted
Anytime soon

Instead they strive
For their late-in-life glory
Like a Civil War vet
Who hobbles on crutches
The full length of
The parade route

I think that I shall never see

A poem well balanced as these trees

Where every word and every phrase

Is interleaved with sun and shade

And while lines branch and extend

Greater harmony remains
Their ultimate end