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.

This article appears in January 2025.

Richard Schiffman is an environmental journalist, poet and author of two biographies. His poems have appeared in The New York Times, BBC Radio and on the “Writer’s Almanac” podcast. His first poetry collection, What the Dust Doesn't Know, was published in 2017 by Salmon Poetry.