Under a tree

'Tree and father cast a long/shadow, both healing beings/devoting their lives to delivering/comfort and much needed shade/in the heat of aspersion'

(Hippocrates Tree, Isle of Kos, Greece. Photo courtesy of Holidify.com)

Under a tree
-for Eric Marks

There is a Plane Tree
from Greece 
on the grounds of my father's
medical school where he is
Professor Emeritus

Teaching doctors agencies
a government to care 
to listen to take histories 

Tree and father cast a long
shadow, both healing beings 
devoting their lives to delivering
comfort and much needed shade
in the heat of aspersion

The tree is said to be 
a descendant of a canopy 
under which Hippoctates 
taught 

You are all doctors 

Whenever I walk beneath  
Planes of any kind
(Sycamores anyone?)
I think of that tree from 
the Isle of Kos

Hippocrates 
my father 
I seek healers
I know where they are
you can find them branching 
out with their arms embracing 

All. All. Each and every 
one of us. The sea is a tree 
as is the sky rest under a bird
wing listen to a fly 

Stop at the foot of those who gather
gems: women men there is no either/or
crows magpies an octopus beetles and ants 

Trees weave healing baskets
so does anything that sings 
which is all of us

Todos.

-Jeremy Nathan Marks