The Lone Pine in Front of Our School

Ah, another poem about school. I'll post an analysis later.

The Lone Pine in Front of Our School
For Year 12, 2007

You can deny it,
but denial never
outruns truth.

It was planted
(as nothing else but
a testimony to the vows
that became people over time)
in our home soil the
year before we
rode the birds on fire,
in the new air up north.
We were one hundred
footsteps ahead of it,
but those before it
had nimbly risen, because
the world cried in need for them,
just as we cry in sorrow for it.
But before it got the chance
to seep its roots into
foreign land, someone came
by to tare heedlessly at its
pregnancy and in surely
the least obscure of
parallels:
at the allegiance
of our tribes.

The four
obelisks
of
Mateship,
Endurance,
Courage and
Sacrifice seemed to be just
empty shells
to the empty shells that lived nearby.

Ah, but that was aeons
ago. I remember seeing the
sapling every morning: it was
a right of passage for me
and many others as we headed
to class. With all these
recurring dreams
I can't help but
ask everyone I know
how tall it has grown.

For I am
A growing tree by heart,
I cannot bare to move an inch -
cannot bare to leave this forest,
the haven where my life strikes
like a clock every contrived and blissful hour.

But here I stand,
five hundred kilometres
from the outer edge of
solace.

And so we all are
Something and something
Within The Lone Pine.
It's branches like us:
Bundled together tightly
at propagation, but as we grow,
spread further and further
apart, but still ever connected
by our limbs.