Heidi White, M.A., is a teacher, editor, podcaster, and author. She teaches Humanities at St. Hild School in Colorado Springs. She is the Managing Editor of FORMA Journal and a contributing author, speaker, and consultant at the CiRCE Institute. She is a weekly contributor on fiction, poetry, and Shakespeare on the Close Reads Podcast Network and the CiRCE Institute Podcast Network. She serves on the Board of Directors of The Anselm Society and sits on the Academic Advisory Board for the Classical Learning Test. She writes fiction, poetry, and essays, and she speaks and writes about literature, education, and the Christian imagination. She lives in Black Forest, Colorado with her husband and children. She also hosts The Daily Poem Podcast 

A Tale of Two Trees

by Matthew Clark

I dreamed I saw two family trees 

They grew from very different seeds 

One stood tall with flowered crowns

And one was bent and bitter 

The bitter tree bore sour fruit 

That made the people eating do 

Wickedness upon the earth 

Until they grew to love it 

The flowered tree put out its leaves 

Which perfumed faintly that bitter breeze 

The bent tree’s branches shook like snakes 

And did their best to kill it 

But up the sweetness rose again 

Like children rise from water cleansed and 

Though the thorns tore at their flesh 

They would not stop their singing

Well ages came and ages went 

And it seemed the good tree’s strength was spent 

While the bitter tree kept sprouting strong 

And choking out its fragrance

Till one day evil’s wicked limbs 

Entangled all the hopes of men 

And struck that holy heartwood down 

And felled the mighty timber 

The crooked fingers of that tree 

Took hold of earth and made it bleed 

And most forgot what goodness was 

Or where to go to find it 

And holiness decayed to dust 

The spinning world gave way to lust 

And justice cracked like splintered wood 

The world lay in confusion 

BRIDGE

A tree is known by the fruit it bears 

And every day we plant ourselves

In one of two families 

In one of these two family trees

But no one saw the twist to come 

The prophets of the stump of God 

Were killed like fools and all ignored 

But underneath the soil 

A tender Word beneath the roots 

Uncurled until a little shoot

Unfurled into the poisoned air 

To raise the ancient family 

To stir the dormant seed of faith 

And water withered hearts awake 

To die upon that bitter tree 

And uproot it forever 

And one day soon we’ll see his face

David’s branch will clear away 

The stubble where the wicked grew 

And Jesus will make all things new

©2023 Matthew Clark, Path in the Pines Music (ASCAP)