Good Timber

Good Timber

The tree that never had to fight

For sun and sky and air and light,

But stood out in the open plain

And always got its share of rain,

Never became a forest king

But lived and died a scrubby thing.

The man who never had to toil

To gain and farm his patch of soil,

Who never had to win his share

Of sun and sky and light and and air,

Never became a manly man

But lived and died as he began.

Good timer does not grow with ease,

The stronger wind, the stronger trees,

The further sky, the greater length,

The more the storm the more the strength.

By sun and cold, by rain and snow,

In trees and men good timbers grow.

Where thickest lies the forest growth

We find the patriarchs of both.

And they hold counsel with the stars

Whose broken branches show the scars

Of many winds and much of strife.

This is the common law of life. 

-Douglas Malloch

This poem explains perfectly why I have grown to love trees so much. I have very fond memories of spending hours in our Mulberry trees as a child. Me and my sisters would waste the day away pretending to live in those trees.  I would much rather be lying on a blanket under a tree than doing anything else I can think of.  Trees symbolize the strong person that we can become through trials. I love all that they represent and the promise that they hold of growth through struggles and difficulty.