The Rhetoric of a Tear

Out of Ponderosa Pine my sculptured being came,A mute expression of what I was before the skillful handCarved me from my towering parent self.Gone are the shadows and the whispering breezeFrom the spot where once my being stood;Void and hollow is the place.Where are the members that were once a part of me?Where is the noble trunk that withstood the sundering blast?Where are those branches, green needles, beneath whose shadeThe rippling streamlet ran?Where is the sunlit top that crowned my former self?Where are the roots which were a primal part?I know not where those primal parts do now abide;Alone I wait the hour. Will I behold againWhat once was all of me, united—faultlessly?