STANDING TALL
She
wasn't
difficult to spot
as she dwarfed the
others like cumulus clouds
hovering over a snow-bathed
glacier. The gentle sway of her limbs
and heady aroma of spruce, saturated the
air she breathed and also nourished. Each day
as she raised her arms skyward, held her breath
against the wind and wondered why she was chosen to
live for nearly two centuries surrounded by such beauty, she
sank her roots deep into the northwestern slope of the Austrian Alps.
Her growth rings became evenly and closely spaced for added strength:
the kind of strength needed to resonate warmth, love and the full spectrum
of human emotion. The kind of strength needed to express joy, sorrow, hope,
longing, rage and calm. The kind of strength needed to withstand the tension
of strings tightly strung and the weight
of a steel plate housed inside the
belly of a grand piano. Not just
any grand piano, but MY piano!
By Sharon Peeples
© 2009 Sharon Peeples
(All rights reserved)
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