The rocking tree

Lulls babes

To slumber, to sleep

In the forest,

Dark and deep.

The creaking tree

Sends us

To dream and weep

On cliffs,

High and steep.

Mothers tell us

Don’t go near

The rocking tree

Along the sea.

It will take ye.

It takes young babes,

Gives them to the sea.

I ran away

At end of day,

At start of star,

To pray,

To go far.

I took the path,

The rocking way.

The tree’s great wrath

With needled spray,

Lunged and reached,

Held me at bay.

I raged and howled,

And screamed and scraped,

But the tree held tight

All through last night.

And at first light,

It rocked and curved.

It twisted and swirled.

It dangled, then hurled

My body to the cliff,

Into the surf,

With a swift

Swipe and release.

An impulse of the beast.

It rocked me,

Mocked me,

Freed me,

Until deceased.

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By JB Morris- Poems, Prose, and Possibilities- mostly about life, sometimes about God, with brief interludes concerning shoe addiction.