This poem was inspired by a delightful tree outside my window during a 2-day silent retreat at The Seven Fountains Jesuit center in Chiang Mai, Thailand in September.
Countless spindly arms
dance and stretch in the wind.
Clusters of feathery foliage fingers
crowd the end of each branch.
The dark green of older,
weather-weary digits
dangle reposed beneath
the bright, bouncy new ones
that protrude upward, two at a tip,
one always a little straighter than the other,
a pair of semi-upright fingers
crowning each outstretched hand,
nodding and swaying with each movement of the Spirit
like the hand of the Pope
reaching out
to bless the world.