Birth from Below the Dead
Nine thousand, five hundred, and fifty years
This tree has grown, or grown and waited, till
Allowed to grow again, still more. It clears
Millennia with patience. Seasons spill
Across it with destructive powers. The cold
Of winters tries to strike its roots to death.
Nine thousand frost Decembers have made bold
To gnaw it with their deepest ice-tooth breath
But it has hunkered longer than the gods
Of Ragnarok long gone now, long ago.
This spruce has yearned beyond the odds
Of cruel weather, those eons of snow.
The parts that reach beneath the rocks of earth
….Cling on forever, hard at work and birth.
[A Norway spruce 9,550 years old in Sweden]