I’ve Always Seen Your Wondrous Tree

***

I’ve always seen your wondrous tree,

And know it’s made by your design,

In veins within the leaf I see,

A pattern of the true divine.
*

I’ve walked in garden where you are,

In rose and daffodil you show,

That you are here, and not so far,

From us the ones who love you so.
*

An aged one I am this hour,

I cannot move this strut or arm,

I strive to be the marvelous flower,

My smile; a glance will be my charm.
*

But still I live; this is your will,

E’en now a watch guard in this place,

Oh wondrous tree, in youth my thrill,

I live as you, in solemn grace.
*

To all the ones so dear to me,

Who stay so close while in this state,

I cherish you, because you see,

You cannot choose your end time fate.
*

Yet every life has power to bring,

If century or blink of eye,

An angel’s chorus offering,

A gift to earth as life goes by.
*

Now winter comes my bloom will dim,

And life within me further fades,

I want to know I’ll be with Him,

To flourish fresh in Heaven’s glades.
***

Peter Lowell Paulson

May 22, 2010

This is a poem about my wonderful 'adoptive' Mother, my Mother-in-law, Ethel Van Cleve. One of the most intelligent, vivacious, gracious, and loving persons I will ever hope to know. Although she is in the nursing home, this poem, hopefully, embodies the essence she gave to me, and still gives. One only has to sit by her, and know that she loves you. But, she LOVED nature, too, and God was alive in the nature she loved.

She would not fail to pick up a leaf and show me its veins or a flower and show me the beautiful cascade of the bud or flower and remark something about God.