Walking in the Dalles park
Wanting to escape
The news of plague
And war.

High up on the rocks
A group of pines
Clutched together on a ledge
Some spindly,
obvious in their clinging
to existence.

There was one tree at the edge,
With glossy needles, hefty trunk,
I saw a sentinel
To guard the others.
But it stood
On a block no wider
Than where tree
Met surface.

The rock was cleft
As though some
Great chisel had gouged
This way and that.

I could not escape my mood.
The thought intruded;
How long could any
Community hold
Against forces working
Toward the changes
That have ever transformed
The planet?