Mountain juniper by my bedroom window,
each year rising half a foot, branches spreading,
blocking out a cubit more of sky.
Who am I to prune the surging crown?
I did not plant this tree, nor trip the switch that sinks
the root, that buds the bud, that swells the trunk,
that thrusts this dizzy tonnage toward the sun.
To grow is joy. So too to watch it year by year
enact the script some slender seed contained.
