The cotton is starting to fall from the trees
and already handfuls of white cover the ground.
Every year, it happens, this mid-summer snow,
and sitting here, I seem to exist in a now
that includes every summer—a now
of goose honk and bright pulse of cricket song,
deep green fields and whitewater.
I feel utterly tethered to the moment
and startlingly eternal—daughter
of blue sky and swallow flight, red cliff
and low golden light. What is forever
to the cottonwood trees if not now,
this very now when the tiny green seeds
are given fluffy white froth to travel on.
What is forever if not for this moment
of summer when I forget
whatever else I should be doing
and give myself up to scent of chokecherry,
prickle of grass, the unpredictable breeze.
Posts Tagged ‘tree’
Now Everlasting
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cottonwood, forever, now, summer, tree on June 12, 2021| 2 Comments »
Scale
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bonsai, evergreen, heart, scale, tree on January 8, 2021| 5 Comments »
The heart
is perhaps
more bonsai
than redwood—
constrained
by the size
of its container—
still, it branches,
it grows,
learns to thrive
inside,
no less
remarkable,
no less
evergreen.
On Discovering I’ve Grown
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beaver, growth, personal growth, tree on December 15, 2020| 2 Comments »
It’s not forever.
When we fence a tree
down by the river,
some slender tree
that a beaver could easily
gnaw through, the fence
only stays up until the trunk
grows big and thick,
wide enough to discourage
any who would try take it down.
Just today, I realized I’d built a fence
around me. Noticed it
only because, while routinely
clearing out,
I dismantled the fence
and took it away.
How invisible a wall can be.
What amazed me:
how enormous I’ve become—
vigorous, robust,
sturdy enough not to worry
about little bites.
I remember how, not so long ago,
I was so vulnerable.
You could hug me now,
now that the fence is gone,
though your arms wouldn’t quite reach
all the way around.
Perhaps that’s as it should be.
Part of me belongs to you.
Part of me is still growing
into the world.
From the Cottonwood
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aging, cottonwood, learning, tree on August 16, 2020| 4 Comments »
I want to hear the song in the old cottonwood tree
outside my window, the tired xylem, the weary phloem,
the rough hymn of the ancient bark. I want to know
how, despite fatigue, it continues to flourish,
to push new cells through the tips of the twigs,
how it thickens despite long drought.
I want to hear the dark lullaby of the worms
as they move through the loyal roots—
what do they know of persistence?
And the dappld shadow that continues to grow,
what might it teach me of love?
Let me be the student of the limbs
that broke off in the wind. Let me listen
and listen again. There is too much
I think I know. I’ve been singing the same
familiar songs so long I began to believe
they were gospel. Oh, how I’ve loved the psalms of green.
Let me sing them while they last. And then, may I learn
to love the song of emptiness, song of surrender,
song of whatever comes next.
Learning
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, learning, life, shadow, tree on July 26, 2020| 2 Comments »
Today the shadows
teach me to love
what is dim,
the sweet respite
of obscurity
when the sun
is too much
and a tree
yields its shape
so that I might slip
my clumsy heat
out of the bounds
of the vertical world
and find instead
a cool dark pool
on the ground,
as if I’m a boat
that has discovered
at last
a slim calm eddy
in which I might rest.
This is perhaps
the way we start
to meet our deaths—
sliding into the relief
of these dark, quiet
channels.
New Starting Point
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged confusion, falling, surrender, tree on June 2, 2020| 4 Comments »
I invite you to fall down. Fall down to the earth.
—Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, “Darkness is Asking to Be Loved,” Lion’s Roar
Today, I am fallen tree.
I am deadwood.
Surrender. I am
don’t-try-to-rise.
Today is a day to know
what it is to fall,
to be felled, to stay fallen.
To say nothing.
Today I am grateful
for gravity that insists,
Don’t try. I don’t try.
I lose any certainty
of where my body ends,
where earth begins,
lose myself in dark, loamy scent
of disturbed and open dirt.
There will be a day
to rise, to stand, to grow
new leaves that gather shine,
to share. But today is a day
to lie on the ground
and lean into loss,
say yes to confusion.
to be torn apart, to listen,
to know the only way
to start again is from here.
Respiratory
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratitude, lung, shadow, tree on March 31, 2020| 4 Comments »
This morning, after the blizzard,
after the sun came out,
there was a moment when the shadows
of the empty cottonwood trees
patterned the snow like tree-sized lungs—
the trunk was a bronchus,
and the branches, bronchioles
that split into twiggish alveoli.
And the tree seemed to say, Remember.
I often neglect to be grateful
for lungs, for breath—
such a simple, forgettable gift.
But in the dividing silhouette,
I saw into myself, a divine branching,
an inner tree, an invitation
to sit and breathe. Remember, it seemed
to say, and I followed the lines until
they disappeared into the light.
Gratitude
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged desert, gratitude, juniper, tree on March 29, 2020| 5 Comments »
Gratitude, it happens,
needs less room to grow
than one might think—
is able to find purchase
on even the slenderest
of ledges, is able
to seed itself
in even the poorest of soils.
Just today, I marveled
as a small gratitude
took root
in the desert of me—
like a juniper tree
growing out of red rock.
If I hadn’t felt it myself,
I might not
have believed it—
but it’s true,
one small thankfulness
can slip into an arid despair
and with it comes
a change in the inner landscape,
the scent of evergreen.
On the Edge of Transformation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cottonwood, transformation, tree on March 20, 2020| 6 Comments »
When it was a branch
on the cottonwood tree,
the driftwood never imagined
it could travel—
and now look at it, softened,
smoothed, riding the current.
Oh heart, what have you
yet to imagine?
Docetaxel
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cancer, friendship, healing, paradox, tree on January 28, 2020| 2 Comments »
The yew can live to be over two thousand years old—
a sacred tree that grows large enough for forty people
to stand inside it. Today, its ancient power fits
in a clear plastic bag the size of two fists and it drips
through a clear plastic tube into the chest of my friend.
In three days, she will not want to move. She will not
want to eat. She will wonder if it’s all worth it.
It will last a week. So strange that a plant
that causes death when consumed will help
to save her life. Her hair has been gone for weeks.
But today, on her last day of chemo, I marvel
at how she is being infused with evergreen
in the hopes that she will transmogrify, carry
in her the mystery that grows in the bark of the tree.
When a yew branch touches the ground, it takes root.
Sprouts again. Let her body know this secret. Amen.