An Olive Tree Composed

By Ryan Keating

There’s a poem growing on the
edge of a busy road outside Lefkoşa, 
a weathered olive tree composed 
of twisted body bending 
for shadow and structure, 
indifferent to meter and rhyme, 
its free verse branches arch 
as vowels over the road 
with consonant leaves 
barely clinging to the ends of lines a little too long, 
forming broad negative space 
of things unsaid where cars whip
past, their drivers involuntarily 
flinching as twigs brush passing
windshields. Its roots find deep inspiration
in dirt like fingers touching truth 
and with gnarled knuckles
exposed punch back the walkway
where 
people acknowledge its presence, 
ducking a limb that sways unmoved
by the disturbance it makes, 
and curving their paths to get by, 
fingers grazing the textured surface
of a marvelous creation that keeps
standing in the way, and whose 
concentric symbols accrue and
expound on living, growing, and being
settled in the concreteness of existence 
until we eventually decompose.

Ryan Keating is a pastor, writer, and wine maker living on the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean. His work can be found in English, Turkish, and Portuguese in various theology, philosophy, and poetry publications.