Another tree of life done in by war

The little tree of life flourished while the war raged.

She grew right out of a pile of rubble.

Dropping apples against bombs

She grew near the shell of an abandoned home.

She grew after everyone left by dying,

Casting her shadow

Across a few shallow graves.

She blossomed when the front line

Swallowed her whole

And soldiers bivouacked in the foundation,

Sometimes speaking Ukranian

Sometimes Russian,

Sometimes Hebrew.

As the tree of life she hung on

When winter penetrated her deepest roots

And it seemed like Spring would never come.

But in May she grew leaves on a twig.

And when Dylans cold rains fell

She seemed to stand for life itself

Because there was no other life to speak of.

Then one night

She felt her life-force waning.

There was a storm.

She asked

The lightning to take her picture

Like a Victorian photographer

From underneath a veil.

There was a bolt of jagged light

And our anorexic little tree of life

Gave up her ghost.
..............................

Im sorry.

Sometimes there is no happy ending.

But shes not the first tree of life

To fall on our cursed battlefields.

Suck it up.