Summer Solstice Tree

Saluda, North Carolina

by: Nan Lundeen

On Summer Solstice
this Blue Ridge
Mountain
stream
the tumbling
Pacolet
turns white
draped
over Pearson’s Falls,
turns dark
wending between
boulders

rolls under
leaved
limbs

past turtles
orange jewelweed
plantain leaf sedge
hydrangea white and wild
scent of mint

skirts sand
bearing
bobcat prints
black bear
scat
roasting

thrums
his jazz tune
ever improv
whoosh-slap-lap

nudges
a block
of mossy rock
set in by a childlike
God
one day.

Bravely
holding
itself above the fray
a tiny tree
rises
from
the middle of the block

rooted
in such a precarious
spot
eternal
in the now
having chosen
sun.