Tag: trees

poetry

transubstantiation

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transubstantiation

things die every day
forms collapse and reconfigure
traces disappear

but here my friend has taken a piece
of our dead walnut tree
riddled with cankers
hacked to lengths
left in the shed for years

and with a patient steady loving hand
she’s turned it into a rolling pin
our hands can clasp and make with
its life converted to the heft
that will make things smooth and sweet

reincarnated and repurposed
like the Little Fir Tree’s obverse
she’s brought its wood
into our warm kitchen
where it’ll now shape apple pie

poetry

Escape

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Escape

I’m dreaming of a little place
in tall trees
lit by sunshine and snow
and golden aspen light

a place so flush with water
it bubbles out of the ground
and you can float on a pond
when you need to let go

I’m dreaming of a small space
with not too much to burn
that heats up quick
with the strike of a match

I’m dreaming of a break
from ash and scrap
where I can settle my head
deep into down

and dream blue white green dreams
where all breezes are innocent
all sparks kept to the stove

poetry

Harper Lake Hope

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Harper Lake Hope

sometimes good news comes to greet you
when you hadn’t thought of looking it up for weeks really
hadn’t tried to imagine what it’s been up to
who it’s hanging out with
where it’s living these days

but there it is, right in your path
ready to clap you on the shoulder:
the big cottonwood still stands
its branches filled with stars
its every fiber a witness to these parched days

the flames didn’t even dare to lick its roots
and its whole patch of grass is still a dull January green
not black
and yes, its branches are covered with fat, conical buds

it’s going to keep spreading shade for all of us
drinking in what we belch out
and sending papery hearts out on the wind next fall

even when everything ceases to work
the way you thought it always would
sometimes a small miracle occurs
and wood makes sugar out of sun
and fresh air from our exhausted sighs
and filters glare to green
and we find we’ll still have a place to rest
where wind may slow to a whisper

poetry

first glimpse of the burn

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first glimpse of the burn

trees still stand where homes do not
our modern lives more combustible than wood
the neighborhoods not quite leveled
thanks to upstanding blackened trunks
an urban forest of ghost trees

but the homes, the manufactured stuff of our lives,
have been stripped from the landscape,
excepting steel car skeletons

imagine all the books offering themselves to air
raining down on Nebraska
the memory foam and down duvets
cans of oven cleaner going off like bombs
baptismal gowns and placemats
Nerf bullets melting
all the photos licked by flames
consumed by a heat furious enough
to wave it all into wind

only leaving our rocky foundations
and silent charcoal trees

poetry

McKinley Park Sit Spot

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McKinley Park Sit Spot

beneath a net of emerald leaves
riding a raft of restless wind
back to earth
brow to sky
I’m home

poetry

what the spruce knows

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what the spruce knows

it’s that time when the creek runs loud and brown
sending the dirt of the road
through the gulch in a torrent
punctuated by white foam
and circling eddies
thrusting sharp sticks ahead

the air has just gone soft
and the snow is nearly melted
the big animals have gone wary
readying for campers and motorcycles
they move across the steep hillside less
their tracks left after dark

the green things begin to prick the soil
and grow wildly
twisted stalks sprouting thick wavy green leaves
and the Oregon grape strews little suns of yellow
blooms across the ground
the air fills with the sweet promise of honey

she still comes and sits every day
taps my trunk with a warm sideways palm
greets me with the old words
Tous, Neyei3eibeihii*
sits down on my curved trunk
gone flat against the dirt and creek bed slope
sometimes she leans her head against my rough bark
and we think together for a time
sometimes she simply rests
in the presence of Moon Creek’s rush

I breathe into her phenols of calm
and the belief
that above or below the ground
we’re all one
our cells align in revelry
we don’t speak
just be for a time
and when she’s ready
I let her go

*Hello, Teacher (in Arapaho/Hinónoʼeitíít)

poetry

weeping cherry

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After I wrote this I found a photographer who was willing to take a picture of the weeping cherry tree, but it had already dropped its blooms. Maybe next year… Thanks to Rozanne Lee Anderson-Moreland for the photos.

weeping cherry

the most thoughtful gift
I’ve ever been given
she was a First Communion miracle
planted just for me

8 years old
our heights about matched
we grew up together
her hot pink flowers lit up the spring
and one year when she was little
robins nested in the heart of her crown

I never named her

five years later we grew apart
divorce took me to a smaller home
without a tree to call my own
but I still visited
still had a claim on that piece of earth

now, with my father gone,
the house and tree
willed to his wife,
she’s another thing I could lose any day

if I could have anything from that home place
I’d take a photo of her now
in marvellous bloom
higher than the house

also perpetual permission to trespass
to lay my bones down
on Walnut Creek shale
whenever it calls

poetry

morning invocation

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morning invocation

today the world is sweet
my eyes can and do open
hands clasp
tongue speaks
lips smile

I inhale the breath of trees
and exhale desert wildflowers
blooming at the slightest sign of rain

here we are
all having hit the jackpot
here on this same swirled sphere
together at this very moment

we draw breath
and open to hear the universe call out
a way to ease pain today
and we will

poetry

getaway

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getaway

the only distractions here
are mergansers gliding through
gold and black bands
trailing slashes
sometimes the hoarse hiccup of gull
or a loon’s two-pitched wail

a time to rest and be

but always the nagging thought
am I doing enough?
how can I move
like the trees around me
whose leaf buds burst quietly
unfurl effortlessly
make air without thought
do what the plan prompts
just flow in accordance with all

poetry

Katalapi

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Katalapi

en el bosque
con las Cotes
el agua canta por nosotros

the notes, rapid and green,
clear away the cobwebs between ourselves
leave us feeling
like we’ve drunk from a cool spring
freshen our eyes
and still our thirsty tongues

we make ephemeral circles
understanding nothing lasts
understanding also joy is the honey
that keeps us flying into the thistles

the most powerful thing I did today
was share breath con un canelo
and put a tiny, black, shriveled seed
into the earth –
now something might someday root