There are cedars that somehow grow out of the rocky cliff edges on our lake. They are survivors who somehow found life in the rocky stretch between the forest behind and the lake below. They symbolize a futile resilience that demands respect not cynicism.
It hung there,
seemingly suspended,
roots clinging
to fissured rock,
stretching at
an impossible angle
to catch a glimpse of sun.
A life on the edge
of the shadows cast
by all those behind.
Stubbornly existing,
the same but not straight,
a life formed crooked
from impossible odds.
A seed blown in the water,
tossed by a stormy wave,
caught between
a rotting root
and ice-cracked rock.
Somehow life emerged
struggled to survive
and grew,
misshapen, but grew,
strong among the stronger.
Hanging over the water
constantly pulled down
implacably, insistently,
it still strains, for strength,
for life, for light above.
The long sunken skeletons
of those who failed
patiently beckoning
submerged below.
Hovered over
it’s certain end,
looking only upward
it drops it silent seeds
into the waters beneath
where, hope beyond hope,
against impossible odds
one might be tossed
by fate’s caprice
into a crevice
where life awaits.
perhaps this time
with no shadows behind