Rings of Life

This is a special weekend made in part by the birth of our second great granddaughter Aly being born earlier this week. So blessed with all the grands and great grands! Here's a poem I doodled today and maybe anyone who has worked with lumber, logs, etc. could relate a little.

Beautiful and natural, oak or fir tables can be seen
From cross-cut tree trunks exposing their rings
Carefully crafted with stripes revealing the age
Of the tree, reading each ring is as turning a page.

Some are brown and thick whereas others are thin
Representing years of how its growing has been
Whether a season of abundance and lots of sprouts
Or a narrow stripe revealing pests, disease or drought.

The whirly stripes could be a metaphor of our lives
Each reflecting blows and ordeals as we were tried
The thick rings were years of growth and prosperity
The thin lines are seasons of hardship and enmity.

Could the grain be as comely if true and straight?
If all the stripes are perfectly concentric and equate?
Or, circles of diverse bends, widths, dark and light
Designs marking pathways of our individual lives?

The heartwood around which the stripes form brings
A sense of Godliness from whom all blessings stream
Ours is not to worry over the contrails of our living
But gracious for His mercies in our thanksgiving.

~by Larry Troxel~