The Old Gnarled Tree

• Lauren Buxton, Grade 9, Our Lady of Mercy College -
• Poetry
• 2019

Excellence Award in the 'Inspired 2019' competition

In my youth, the old gnarled tree grew into a wild twisted monster by night,
But a feature of beauty at the strike of daylight,
The trunk, as bumpy and aged as the hands of an old crone,
I was constantly haunted by slavery into the world of adulthood,
Where imagination is surrendered to reality.
The tree marked an unusual sense of abnormality and deception,
A simple figure, teasing my mind with a deathly silence of wonder,
Drifting me into sleepless nights,
A sight that only I can see and acknowledge,
Bringing out feelings of terror and fear in the big world of fairy tales and ambition.
The simple figure of creation marks its place in the world,
Now all I see is a tree, only a tree, and nothing but a tree,
A death-defying thought struck me, I am no longer a child.