The Poet Tree

Many, many years ago
There was an ancient oak
Planted by a lonely man,
Whose name was Alfred Stoak.
Poor Alfred was a poet
Who was terribly alone
And so he grew his little tree
Very near his home.
Every day he'd read to it
And talk to it, and sing.
He didn't care it was a tree
He told it everything.
About the colors of the sky
At daybreak and at dusk
And about the human world
Of love and hate and trust.
And whenever he would write a poem
He'd tell it to the tree
He say "Though you can't speak a word,
You have inspired me"
Many years went by this way
The small oak grew in size...
But then, as all humans do,
The poet Alfred dies.

Time passed by so slowly,
To the oak that grew and grew.
And though it was but a tree
Somehow, though, it knew
About the colors of the sky
At daybreak and at dusk
And about the human world
Of love and hate and trust.
It seemed the tree remembered
All the things that Aflred said
It missed and longed for Alfred Stoak
Whose poetry was dead.

But then one day a young man came
Who had the gift of rhyme
But he lacked the inspiration
-One thing he had, was time.
And so he sat beneath the tree
Trying to find the way
To put his words his words on paper
He sat there for a day.
Finally, he spoke,
Unkowing that that the tree
Was listening intently, he said
"Muse, please come to me!
I do not know the way to write
The words I cannot speak!
They're there, Oh yes, I feel them
But they're strength is mighty weak"
And the tree, it told him
Though, how, I cannot say.
What I do know is, that young man left
Inspired on that day.

The young man never forgot
The tree who helped him through
And so, everywhere he went
He made sure the poets knew
About the tree of inspiration
The tree, the mighty muse
The tree who could show everyone
The proper words to use.
And thus the word spread quickly
About the Poet Tree
And many poets made the trip
Hoping they would see.

By now the mighty tree had grown
Near twenty feet around
And through the poets saw the world
But never left the ground.
It learned about the aweful wars
Of jealousy and strife
For every poet that it helped
Would tell it of their life.
The Poet Tree was happy,
But at times it was sad
It's hard to see the world as good
When so much of it is bad.
But it remembered Alfred
And how he'd talk and sing
How he'd fed the tree on words
And told it everthing
About the colors of the sky
At daybreak and dusk
And about the human world
Of love and hate and trust.
And so for many hundred years
This is they way things went
Inspiration was the prize
And words-the money spent.

Then came the day the poets ceased
And never came again
The Poet Tree became a myth
A truth that met it's end.
Though in legend it's remembered
None know where it resides
Oh, what a day it must have been
When inpiration died.

I wanted to find the tree
So, one day, I set out
The stories...they amazed me.
And I couldn't do without.
And it was by chance that I
Stumbled on a wood
Where, though I didn't know it,
The Poet Tree still stood.
And we spoke  for a while
I told it all I knew
And in return it told me,
Quite a few things, too,
About the colors of the sky
A daybreak and at dusk
And about my human world
Of love and hate and trust.
And with a new inspired soul
I left that glorious tree.
So don't think inspiration dead....

It was still there for me.