By verdurous shade of aspen grove
Close clone trunks and golden boughs
Whorls that see and bark that hears
Winter mana for elk and deer
In the hills, the groves beyond
That do not share our leaf and bond
Where each tree lone must shelter seek
Providing not, and ever in need
to be the tallest tree in the vicinity.
We are told that the aspen is but a clone
Its majestic sprawl but an imagined home
For trees too weak to be alone
and our grove an anomaly from common known
We are told:
Each drop of rain that heaven weeps
Each ray of sun, every fall of leaf
A privilege each organism must earn
The sick, the sapling and the crone
Deserving nothing but what they themselves can reach
what they themselves can do
for the grove; before it accepts any tree as its own.
How curious! We of aspen say
In our grove of ten thousand years, each day
We’ve shared of sap, branch, root, and leaf
In the same way we've shared of soil and clay
Of what other groves feel a tree should be
all white-limbed beings in our grove
most green share roots most deep, agree
water for all! and sun for free
Is the only way that a tree should be.