For all who don’t blend in

To see a tree like this — 

So many branches 

 Reaching out, like nerves, at every level —

 In a forest where the fashion 

 Is containment, only branching at the sky, 

Makes me ache for all that effort, unrewarded: 

All the failure and dead ends; 

The inability to fit in; 

The obvious otherness, that stands out sharply 

 In the midst of all that sylvan conformity… 

And so I lift a prayer 

 On behalf of all those prickly souls 

Whose uniqueness doesn’t blend 

 With their surroundings.