I've Been Known To Write A Poem
But I've gotten away from it for a long time. Last night, I couldn't resist the muse so I'll present for your delectation and derision the following:

The Hawthorn

I was not the one to walk out on a play or show
before the final curtain ended all the bows.
Though there were times I have seen the curtain drop
before the actors and the action of the scene had stopped.
So unlike the trees that pace their growth
with a kind of elemental, furious sloth:
Ring of light, ring of dark laid in the wood.
I have watched one special hawthorn grow
with its smooth-barked delicate trunk and angling boughs.
There once I climbed in beauty to the top
in a tree I never imagined would be chopped.
But now that tree trunk may as well be cloth -
a painted scrim or just a taste of ashes in my mouth.
Curtains fall. Here is where the hawthorn stood.

I will plead that it's still the newborn and quite raw. I am satisfied with the form but the meter is off as is the rhetoric. When I've taken the angle grinder to the gross protrusions and when I've used the jeweler's rouge on the rest, I'll post it again.