The Year I Embrace My Wounds

I’m able to ––in my gut––
hold myself up.
My thick branches hang upwards:
they’re strong. They unabashedly cultivate knowledge. 
They persist and resist.
I’m beautiful.
That’s what they tell me at least
I don’t know what it is.
Is my white representative of innocence? Is that what they find beautiful? Is it
how I work on a schedule? – My leaves fall at the same time time every year.
Or is it just because they can rely on me for shade and I would never say no?
I am beautiful,
But mostly because of the black that my paper bark reveals.
Mostly because my full branches work in harmony with the twigs hanging downwards.