Poem- Form and Function

Form and Function

One of the great joys

in tending to a tree

is that form still follows function. 

Many people hack at a tree.  They want

a certain affect, and so deliver

aesthetic wounds.

The long,

sinuous

line

of a trunk

speaks to

elegant health.

And the removal of twigs

unhealthy to a tree

add to its beauty.  To open the center of a tree,

and let it breath freely, to remove scale

and disease, is to reveal

the powerful chest of a plant

most likely older than yourself.  And much as they might tell you

if you were studying words, or books, or science, or theorems,

it is the elegance of a tree’s beauty

that leads

to the smoothest, strongest function.

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