Offered for Tweetspeak Poetry’s June theme: Trees. With apologies to Ezekiel 17:22-24.
Why the good Lord would put cedar in the holy Bible
is beyond me. I mean, cedar!
He went and called it “noble.”
Please, spare me!
Aspens are noble. Maples are noble. Cypress
trees with their toes stuck in a river are noble.
The live oak tree that shades my whole front lawn
is noble.
Cedar sucks up every speck of water, stealing
from the trees that play fair. Cedar spills golden dust
from Christmas to Valentine’s Day, making everyone
sick at the most wonderful time of the year.
I think it’s just plain ugly, although it’s not too bad
for a fence post.
I hear the old ones are better than grass for drainage,
which would be a fine thing if it ever rained.
Ezekiel must have been talking about a different cedar.
Or maybe when this spinning top slows
when fire and hail and locusts have take out my pecan
tree, my elm, my crepe myrtle,
maybe that dang cedar is all that will be left.
Maybe birds will finally nest in its branches. Maybe
I’ll sit down and rest under that indecent shade.
This is a good poem! I love it! And I agree completely.
I guess it depends on where you live. I first got this hatred of the cedar from Pioneer Woman, whose husband routinely destroys them. Maybe the cedar we have mixed into all our forests in CA is a different kind of cedar? However, I love this poem – even though I don’t hate cedars. :>)
Everlasting cedar. 🙂
Love this! (And as soon as I get back home, I’m going to stick my head in my great-grandmother’s cedar chest and inhale deep.)
Amen!!! It took the “cedar-eater” guy nearly two weeks to clear all the cedar off our five acres. My husband was determined to get rid of every single one. Of course they’re all around us anyway….Ah-choo!
I’m with you on the cedar. I’m a snotty mess around the stuff.
I can appreciate your lack of love for cedars, and though we don’t have any on our property, I’m grateful for the hedge of cedars on one neighbor’s property that blocks our view of another neighbor’s unsitely barn and semi-truck garage. I pray those cedars stand up to every storm.
“Indecent shade” – ain’t that the truth!