Diameter and Time
The dark thick earth
supports the stalks
of living things,
but sometimes they fall
and scrape the bark
or pull with them
the roots of close neighbors.
Horizontal they begin to decay,
but only slowly with time
and it takes longer
then the lives of the others
to be completely consumed
and returned
to the source.
The larger ones
hollow out and leave a useful shell,
and those in a rich mud
fossilize forever.
-Robert L. Jackson III, 2010
From http://grandpacliff.com/Trees/Img-Trees/rotten-log.jpg
