The “scorched earth” general has his own tree,
The largest living thing on the planet.
(Enough of such obvious irony.)
A man may live to be eighty, ninety,
Be a beggar or a Plantagenet,
Become a name or a nonentity,
While one tree can live two millennia,
Which we claim ours with some insignia.
After surviving its first century
Of insect threat and impedimenta,
Prone to fall to elemental fury,
An imperturbable concentration
On growing each circular striation
Inside, the tree (like me) does not hurry.