THE TREE

When Sam first found out
he won the lottery,
he rode all the way back to the mountains
of East Tennessee.
Said he had to get away
from all the racket,
but it just came with him.
So he parked under a cut,
by Dead Man's Curve,
jumped off, and ran through the woods.

About a hundred yards in,
he broke through some bushes
to a clearing and in the middle
there was an old red oak
that spread out about thirty yards,
it's trunk as big as a house,
the bottom limbs so thick
their own weight pulled them down
toward the ground before
they could sweep back up
at the perimeter.

Sam says it's what saved him.
Says, "I just climbed right up
one of those limbs,
laid back against the trunk,
and listened to its song
"till I fell asleep."
Next day, Sam went to the courthouse
to find the owner.
Bought all hundred and nine acres for
fifty-two thousand dollars.

Old man Morton laughed about it
when he told his buddies what that
damn stupid hippie from out west
had paid.
Sam went home
and took a bath in his very own crick.



By: Vol Lindsey