The Hollow Tree

Come into the deep dark forest
To spy and see

A tall dark tower, a mystery
A young but lonely hollow tree.

Go to the husk, don't fear, don't flee.
Step inside; you need no key.

There see simple, damp young wood.
Sappy tears run down in streaks which would
Kill the tree if he had no good.

Those sappy tears can be his good,
So never pull up high your hood.

There is a blossom for your sight,
Budding inward without light;
The blossom's spirit has taken flight,
Left empty colors snow and night.

Left on my soul a sun-spot bright,
Burning, urging me to fight.

But now the tree is content to wait.
Wait and stand and Stand and wait,
For that beauty soon to take
Her sorrows and her painful wake

From a soul whose heart did shake
In a wondrous, dainty, dreaming quake
- With that beauty, was beauty's sake -
But now whose happiness seems fake.

Oh how whims and fancies steal
The best and my heart's only meal;
Open hearts don't simply heal

From that warmness taste and shape
Whose absence made my joy not real.

So here you spy the hollow tree;
I see you didn't take to flee,
Like did that blossom (loved was she!).

But when you go to take your leave,
And take with you all that you did see,
Don't forget one thing for me:

I am that tall young mystery;
I am the lonely hollow tree.

[1992]