Regrow

Close up photo of the peeling bark of a paperbark tree.

Bravely paperbark
slashes open its old heart
so it grows anew.

Up

Photo of a partly cloudy sky as seen from under the branches of a small tree.

When life lacks lustre,
look up from under a tree—
world looks different.

Bird

Photo of autumn leaves on a branch, with the tree’s branches coming in from the left side of the photo.

Tiny, red, bird-like;
migrating for the winter:
leaves flying off trees.

Flowering gum

Close up photo of the leaves of a flowering gumtree.

Wise old eucalypt
doesn’t cry over dead branches—
it only flowers.

Afterlife

Photo of a dead cedar tree by the river.

Branchless and bare-bones;
the once-magnificent tree:
an ecosystem.