On the top of the hill, the tall, cold tree,
Stands proudly, icily, bitterly;
Thin and sharp, cracked and burled,
Locked, like a prisoner, in a black world.
The tree was once a flower, soft, supple, slender,
Born with a jewel inside, of love, dreams of splendor;
But by the world, the jewel was stolen, shattered,
The innocent tree was trampled and battered.
Now, the tree is iron-hard and dry,
It vowed that it would never cry;
But sometimes, it feels the world’s too cruel,
When it remembers the stolen jewel.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Written in May 2017, depicting the tragic life of Dallas Winston in S. E. Hinton’s novel The Outsiders.
