I am a tree.

Did you think I was a woman?

Oh, no. I am a tree

Rooted and immovable,

impossible to conceive the scenes

that I have seen.

Now gnarled and warped,

weather and aged,

wrinkled and withered

bent to the ends of recognition

too rigid to give in

to the whim of man.

I stand true to the tune 

of the wind echoing

my own inner rhythm

persistent, consistent, constant

Perhaps every tree

was once a woman........

only a woman could stand so long

fall so proud

when the axe of age claims her

and earth sets a bed for her.

Helen Bar-Lev