Solitude

Even one who cannot leave
has a place they keep looking toward.
The sky.
The tree gives its body
to the wind.
It bends as much as it yields,
and survives as much as it bends.

It endures because there is a sky,
and as much as it endures,
a shape remains in its body.
That bent shape
is not a trace of defeat.
It is the shape of endurance
that never forgot the sky.
So
when you see something bent,
think first
of the wind it has faced.
A bent back
is a record not of defeat,
but of what it has endured.