It did not grow in a single year,
Nor stretch its limbs from hope or fear.
It pushed through stone, it split the clay,
And added rings for every day.
The storms that came did not destroy —
They stripped the weak and left the core.
Each broken branch, each frozen night,
Taught the trunk to grip more tight.
Its shadow now is wide and long,
A canopy for those not strong.
The children play beneath its crown,
Not knowing what it cost to grow this sound.
And when the final winter calls,
And even mighty timber falls,
The roots remain beneath the ground,
Still holding what they always found.
Author’s Note
I think about the men and women I’ve known who carried their families, their communities, their faith — quietly, without applause, across decades. They never asked to be celebrated. They just grew. This poem is for anyone whose strength is the slow, invisible kind. The kind that holds everything together without anyone noticing until it’s gone.
