Pictures in Trees
Karen Eileen, 1997

He looms above me
dark, foreboding
his thousand hands clutch vainly at
the empty sky
while the eyes in his wrinkled face
glare directly down
at me.
In his hugeness he could crush me, but
I sense kindness in his brown stare.
My furrowed friend,
he inspires not fear, but awe.

Slowly his arms crisscross in the air,
draw for me a story.
A tale of a child
hurried footsteps, tripping blindly
Why is the little girl crying?
Helplessness and ineptitude,
how futile to be rooted to the ground!
Red hair matted with sweat
She runs by, her unfinished story a
part of his own now.

Countless fragments of dramas,
questions that never find answers.

Some people see pictures in clouds.
I see pictures in trees.