Four decades of distracted searching — rush
to snag the exclusive, meet the deadline, 
grab the bargain, boost the credit
 
& now I finally notice you. Like a high-speed
train approaching Penn Station, I’m slowing
down. I move to Big Mountain
 
& listen for the whip-poor-will at twilight,
study the life cycle of the Swallowtail.
I pray under your heart-shaped leaves.
 
O redbud tree of the edges,
timber in the understory, I yield to you.
I never noticed your whoosh
 
& tingle. I try to break your tough, slender
branch but I fail. You quieten me. I sit with you
until sunset.  I contemplate you as twigs

stretch like forked capillaries. I surrender.

I have been lost in an American daze.
Thank you for waiting for me. 
 
Your abundant pink blossoms
in spring — all I had ever known. 
Now, tree of the tribes, I am your student. 
 
Generational memories speak
to me through rustle & wind. I imagine
a Cherokee mother boiling your dark 
 
bark into a tonic to soothe
the deep cough of her infant.
‘Use every scrap,” she chants.
 
“Thread your branches into baskets
with star patterns & handles. In all
small parts of her take glory.”