Joseph Stroud




Homage to the Black Walnut
in Downtown Santa Cruz

Late afternoon, trudging from the bank to the bookstore,
I stop and look up at the black walnut on Cedar Street,
into its green canopy of leaves and immense curving limbs.
A tree is a place, not an object, it’s an island in the air
where our sight may live awhile, unburdened
and free from this heavy, earthen body.