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Like a Tree

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Or consider that tree 
In the dead of winter
See how bare-bone it is?
How affected and exposed it is? 
How sturdy and mortified it is?

 Every year, you know 
New life
Fresh beginnings
a creation, a refuge
planted by streams of living water 
Sparks along the limbs

 Every year, you know 
Old death
a sorrowful bow
braced by wind and storm
roots creaking
Stripping the body clean

 Every year, again and again 
At nature's mercy
secure, yet defenseless
sheltering death and life 
Together 
At once
The tree bears it all

Do you need me to tell you? 
God is like this tree
naked, unashamed, other, known
mercifully at our mercy
invaluable, yet commodified
incomparable, yet ignored
struck down, but not destroyed
bearing fruit in and out of season 
Teeming with Life everlasting

 God is like this tree
And we cannot imagine it without him
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