Written for the 2012 Three Twelve record, Something Begun, "This Tree" is a metaphor for so many important figures in my own life, and has been used in worship and memorial services far and wide.  This is a solo arrangement.

Lyrics

Come sit for a while where you can’t quite see the sky.
Find a place on the ground amid the leaves and the sounds of liv­ing.
Cal­loused roots shape the soil.  Burn­ing sun­light is foiled
into cool, mot­tled green, and this stur­dy trunk leans
against forces not seen in your life­time.

These branch­es have grown with­out blooms of their own,
but the earth in their care shel­ters saplings that dare out­grow them,
and oth­ers who fall with no chal­lenge at all.
But the fall­en have worth, as their ghosts feed the earth,
and in falling go forth to pro­tect oth­er births and seedlings.

Long ago, this tree stood alone
on a hill, scarred by rain and parched by sun.
But these roots held their ground until the for­est grew around,
and when that tri­al was done, some­thing had begun:
this tree had a home.

Now, some­day, this tree will exhaust its time to be,
and the for­est will find that the giant has dried and brit­tled.
And slow­ly the soil will reclaim the years of toil
that this tree took to stand, to pre­pare fer­tile land for grow­ing.

And even the frame of this tree will not remain,
as its bark turns to dust, and its knot­ted flesh must be repur­posed.
But here where it stood grows a thick­et of wood:
many lives from the one, reach­ing high toward the sun,
though the why they can is for­got­ten.

Long ago, one tree stood alone
on a hill, scarred by rain and parched by sun.
But these roots held their ground until the for­est grew around,
and when that tri­al was done, some­thing had been won:
that tree made a home.