Alexander Theroux
The eastern white pine was Henry's favorite tree,
tall, wholesome, wild, untamed, erect, and round.
He deigned to hug them and by doing so felt free.
They stood to him like noble feathers in the ground.
To the aromatic spicy fragrance of its oozy pitch
was a resin he could chew, and its turpentine smell
any creature's heart and soul managed to enrich.
Its inner bark was edible and fried or roasted well.
Nothing on earth stood up freer from all blame.
Its boughs thrum like harps angelic in the wind,
as living symbols their spires and masts proclaim
and brought to Henry Massasoit's ghost to mind.
None who understood the tree could not enjoy it
and swore it ever to preserve and not destroy it.