A Tree of Life.

{This is from my late husband's files, the only piece of poetry I have found that he wrote, so far
Lee}

Old Man's Story

A young boy I, I stood beside the man who was my sire.
He spoke to warn of many things, still I burned my hand on fire.
A sharp clawed cat, a barbed wire fence, oh YES! I learned,
Of this and that.

"My tree of Life" he pointed far, I looked yet did not see,
The truth of the words he spoke, or what he was telling me.
"My Father." he said, touching my head, "Told me about this place,"
The tree of life is where one puts the Gold of your life's embrace.

So young, I did not understand, and the day I said goodbye,
The very last words my sire spoke were, "Son, you really have to try!"

A grown man now, yes late in life, I stood upon that place,
Where my Father spoke to me the words my mind failed to embrace.
"The tree of life" is what he said, I looked across the woods,
I realized just one didn't fit, from the point of where I stood.

I went to the base of that now large tree, I realized what I had found,
My Grandfather had buried all his wealth within this very ground.

"The tree of life." my Father said, I wondered long about that.
I dug and dug around the base, no riches ever came out.

Years later I stood with my own Son, upon the very spot.
I spoke to him of the stories, some true, some perhaps not.
"The tree of life!" I told him, passed down to you and me.
The riches of a generation, they lie beneath that tree.

"But Daddy," my son spoke to me. "To reach what lies below, don't we have to fell the tree, it really would have to go!"

I looked again, the Cedar tall, strong, and standing free.
I realized what my father said, the truth he passed to me.

That tree grandfather planted, his gold stored far below, was a symbol of a family, it stood for us to know.

"The tree of life" grandfather said, as he passed it to my sire.
I passed it on to my own son, let him learn on his own about fire.