BRETHREN

An oddity of nature.

Standing in a stand of giants.

Frosted in an unreal glow, a dull glaze

that could be faux snow

or sunlight’s dappled brushwork,

but is not. An albino

redwood, a dwarf tree,

is what’s there—a startling 

anomaly in this forest.

Does it think: I am not

like the others,

grand and evergreen?

It does not.

It is simply a tree among trees.

A brother among brethren.

Nature has so much to teach us
about how to be with ourselves
and our own kind.