This poem reminded me that leaders (and all humans) are renewed and strengthened through challenging seasons and time… please notice the last stanza…
A Black Birch in Winter
You might not know this old tree by its bark,
Which once was striate, smooth, and glossy-dark,
So deep now are the rifts that separate
Its roughened surface into flake and plate.
Fancy might less remind you of a birch
Than of mosaic columns in a church
Like Ara Coeli or the Lateran
Or the trenched features of an agèd man.
Still, do not be too much persuaded by
These knotty furrows and these tesserae
To think of patterns made from outside in
Or finished wisdom in a shriveled skin.
Old trees are doomed to annual rebirth,
New wood, new life, new compass, greater girth,
And this is all their wisdom and their art—
To grow, stretch, crack, and not yet come apart.
– Richard Wilbur
Published in The Atlantic in 1974 and reprised Dec 25, 2022. Illustration by Miki Lowe.
~Will Keiper – The Noticing Guide (subscription is free at www.willkeiper.com)
