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Posts Tagged ‘trees’

How Things Change

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 28, 2026| 7 Comments »

Most of the time, an aspen stand regenerates itself through cloning from its extensive underground connected root structure. But, sometimes, given very specific conditions, they can introduce genetic diversity through seed germination.

                  from Traveling Nature Journal, October 4, 2020

In the spirit of diversity
the aspen catkins
appear on the passes,
gathering low light 
into acres of radiance
as they dangle
from bare limbs
in long clusters of gray fuzz 
and all I want
for the rest of my life
is to be worthy of living 
in a world with such
potent softness, such promise.

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What’s Really at Stake

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 22, 2025| 2 Comments »


 
 
I like to live in the scent of pine
on a thaw-some winter morning,
viscous tendrils of tree perfume
thick in the air, scent of evergreen,
yes, but a warmer scent, too,
like honey, like vanilla, like must.
I like the way the scent lives in me
as I move through the tussocks  
of snow. I like pulling the tree-sweet air
into my lungs, like thinking of how
even now I, too, am becoming
more tree, as if my shadow side, too,
might soon grow moss. As if I, too,
might begin to grow roots right here
in the moment. As if I, too, might remember
how surely I depend on this earth,
how surely it depends on me.

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One Night Before Christmas

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 24, 2024| 1 Comment »


 
 
ornaments for the galaxy
between bare cottonwood branches
hung by what great hand, the stars

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In a World Such as This

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on October 20, 2024| 11 Comments »


 
 
She matches her photograph,
so most people don’t notice
she’s become a cottonwood tree.
 
Every morning before she leaves for school,
she tucks her roots into her shoes
and gathers her branches beneath her skin.
 
I have sat beneath her shade
and gathered her cotton in my hands,
marveled at how quickly she grows,
 
admired how she stabilizes the world,
makes shelter for others
from the gale.
 
How many other people
that we see on the street
are actually trees?
 
A conifer with an evergreen grin.
A maple with hidden sweetness.
A child who is a sequoia.
 
In a world such as this,
hungry and shifting,
it is necessary to listen to the trees.
 
Because it’s hard to tell who they are,
we must listen
to everyone.
 

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Subtraction

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 15, 2024| 7 Comments »


 
For months now, the days darken.
This signals the trees to stop making chlorophyll,
and, in its absence, other pigments in the leaves
can be seen. Yellow flavonols. Orange carotenoids.
Red anthocyanins. They adorn each tree
with such radiance, such honest treasure—
a beauty that was always there
concealed beneath the green.
 
Touch me, I want to say to the darkness.
or perhaps more truly, I say to the self,
be touched, be touched as if you are a tree.
Let what you know of yourself break down.
What hidden gold might be revealed then?
What amber? What astonishing vermillion?

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At the Picnic with the Parks Supervisor

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on August 4, 2024| 4 Comments »

With thanks to Rich Hamilton

I remember when I planted that tree,
he says, and I look at the beautiful
sensation box elder that grows
in the park, tall as the fire station,
alive as I am. I bet you remember
when this park was a dustbowl with dandelions,
he jokes. And I do, though in this
moment my feet sink into bright green grass.
I remember chasing my children
around that tree when we were younger.
I remember when that pool of shade
where people now sit was all brash sun.
I think of how much time it takes
to nurture a place. I tell myself,
sometimes goodness grows 
in the world if we wait. I tell myself,
sweetheart, time to plant trees.

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Instead of Turning Off the News

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 29, 2024| 14 Comments »

Because it hurts to think about
the lost look in the boy’s eyes
as he holds out a thin silver pot for food,
because I ache when I think about the rubble
made of kitchen tables and bicycles,
hospitals, homes, high schools, hope,
because it is so painful to not know how
to help hundreds of thousands
of mothers and uncles and brothers
and daughters, I think about trees.
I think about how they grow.
How they need wind and the stress
of the world to build reaction wood
that helps them to lengthen
and strengthen into the bend.
Without such wood, the tree would break,
would fall. Oh self who would try to lock out the news,
oh self who feels the great weight of other’s pain,
of course you would want to look instead
for only what is beautiful, what is kind.
But let it all in. The fear. The worry. The anger.
The wishing. The compassion.
The longing to help. Of course
the big problems make you feel small.
But unless you can stand
in the place of yes to the world,
you can’t really stand at all.
The hunters in Eurasia would harvest
the compression wood created by stress
to make their bow staves—
that wood was stronger, more dense.
Oh self, you too need the right tools
to do the heart work you long to do.
What are you made of?
How strong are your roots?
Who will you be if you do not let it all in?

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Woodsy

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 18, 2024| 8 Comments »

somewhere above Telluride, Colorado


If you close your eyes and just breathe in,
then it’s sixteen years ago and we’re off the trail
roaming through damp autumn woods.
The duff is soft with needles, moss,
and the air is scented with resinous spruce—
fresh and woodsy, tangy, bright.
Sun filters into the evergreen glade
to kiss the clearing with light. Remember, love?
Whatever dreams we brought in with us,
they, too, came to smell of earth, forest,
musk and shade. The mountains
had their way with us that day.
We said little, but by the time we left,
shadow-drunk and gloriously map-less,
everything had changed.  

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Shifting Purpose

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on October 24, 2023| 7 Comments »




Yesterday, the thing to do
   was to rake the golden leaves
    from the grass and gather them
       into huge untidy piles
  for my husband to pull away.
   Today the invitation is
to not rake the leaves.
   To sit in the grass and feel myself
    folded into an unmanaged beauty.
  The invitation is to admire
     their infinite shades of yellow
   and brown—to notice
how some are speckled,
  some torn, some brittle,
      some still impossibly soft.
   If some part of me
     feels duty bound
  to straighten the world,
she is not here now.
   I want nothing but to sprawl
 in disorder, to feel only delight
      as the wind releases leaves
   from the autumn trees,
want to relish how, with no politic,
the leaves dance to the ground.
  Want to know myself as unruly,
  one who finds joy in the rustling,
one who thrills in the glorious mess.

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Staying in the Canyon

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on February 8, 2023| 10 Comments »




I imagine the trees saying
it is not such a bad thing
to show up day after day
in the same place with the same
walls and the same light
and the same soil.
All that moving around
is one way to live.
Staying rooted is another.
I notice I want to argue.
I notice I want to relent.
I notice they have no sense
of lack. Their days are full.
Their heartwood strong.
I imagine them saying,
so much can travel inside you
when you never move at all.

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Note to the Inner Green Leaves

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 26, 2022| 2 Comments »




Every day, more gold.
Every day, a sacred spilling
across the mountains, the valleys.

I have felt, before, like an aspen still green
when the surrounding trees
have transformed into radiance.

Oh, this learning to trust our own timing.
In the meantime, every day more gold.
Every day, a sacred spilling.

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Tannins of Love

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on November 6, 2021| 7 Comments »




He loved the bitter tastes—
thrilled at what happened to the mouth
without sugar. So tonight,
staring at the fresh cranberries,
I feel the now familiar twist
of deep love laced with sour.
How many pots of cranberry sauce
did we make out of season,
boiling down the hard red fruits
with as little sugar as we could manage?

I remember the way he poured cranberries
into the pot, not with grace,
but with enthusiasm. The way he waited
for the berries to meld before adding
sugar, clove and orange peel.
The way he thrilled in the sharp red tang—
his pucker trailed by a grin.
The cranberries spark in me a brighter
love for that boy. Even as I wince.

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On Earth Day

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 21, 2021| 4 Comments »



Of course, the trees with their greening,
their growing, their gift of eating light—
how beautiful they are in these first days of spring:
their feathery drupes that gather low sun,
the tender gold when the leaves first unfurl.

But today I am awed by the vital soil that feeds them—
awed by the multipedes and woodlice, fly larvae and springtails
that fragment the once-living world into mulch;  
awed by the nematodes, the mites, the pauropods,
awed by the rotifers, the algae, the bacteria,

the single-celled protozoans—all of these makers of earth.
There’s elegance in the process—the breaking down,
the separation of proteins, the release of nitrogen,
the creation of rich, dark humus.
How seldom I honor the beauty of tearing apart,

the blessing of brokenness, the importance of those
who undo, who help the world go to pieces.
The earth itself is an altar to breakdown, decay,
collapse, demise. And from these infinite violences,
we rise, like trees, we rise.


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More

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 26, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Inspired by dark and naked aspen,
she’s been practicing emptiness—
perhaps you, too, have seen the way
that barren arms can better hold
the changing colors of the sky.
The less she holds, the more love
seems to fill her, pours into her
like the winter sunset, vast and brilliant.
 
All these years she thought the point
was to be full. Now she marvels
at how resonant she is without
so much clutter—how resounding,
the honest beating of her heart.
 

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On an Evening When I Am Troubled

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 12, 2020| 2 Comments »

IMG_6088

 

I try to see myself

the way I see the trees

far off beyond the field—

something not at all singular

but a tiny part of a whole

that extends beyond sight,

beyond knowing.

 

It is a long time

before my thoughts

are airy as the silences

between their dark trunks,

quiet as the leaves

that are not yet there.

 

 

 

 

 

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Autumn Beside the River

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on September 6, 2019| 2 Comments »

 

 

 

The rocks that were underwater

two months ago are dry now,

and a woman can sit on them

beneath the bridge and escape

the September sun. But she can’t

escape herself. There was a time

she really believed she could control things.

Now she sits with her own brokenness

and invites the inevitable autumn into her,

the autumn that’s already come.

Invites the lengthening nights. Invites

the dank scent of the garden, moldering and dead.

Invites the loss of green. You can’t be

a sapling forever, she tells herself,

though another part of her argues,

Yes you can, yes you can.

 

The river has never been so clear—

every rock in the bed is visible now,

and perhaps clarity is one of autumn’s best gifts.

She imagines the leaves of her falling off—

how she loves them.

She imagines them golden in the wind.

 

 

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Raking the Leaves with Jack

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on October 28, 2018| 2 Comments »

for Jack Ridl and all the rakers

 

 

Pulling the rake through the cottonwood leaves,

I think of Jack in Michigan pulling his rake

through beech, birch, oak and ash leaves.

I stop to lean on my rake and I think

of him stopping to lean on his rake

and talk to the gods. I’m not so sure I believe

in gods, but I believe in Jack. I believe in kindness.

I believe in friendship that grows despite distance.

I believe that these rhythms of raking and making piles

bring us closer together—all of us rakers, all of us

who step into the slow cadence of pull and reach,

and pull and reach. There is something unifying

in this annual act of tidying the world. Every day

the news is full of all we can’t set right. But we

can drag the rake through the yard so that we

can see the path again. And we can set the rake

aside and stare at the sky and think of all

the people we love and all the people

we’ll never know who join us in this simple act,

reach and pull, reach and pull, reach and pull,

the sound of metal tines grating, the beat

of our own hearts scraping against our chests.

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Just After the Equinox

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on March 26, 2018| Leave a Comment »

 

 

 

Out the kitchen window, my daughter

scales the cottonwood tree, winds

her way up the inner branches.

 

Feeling my eyes, she turns to smile at me,

her gaze entered by light.

The tree is bare, the buds in gray hoods,

 

though soon there will be a riot of quivering green.

So much in us still waits to arrive,

though in moments such as this,

 

there are no other moments, only this one

fluttering wild in our breast, not even trying

to balance the emptiness, with our hearts so full.

 

 

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Catkins in March

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on March 17, 2018| 2 Comments »

 

 

But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—”Thou mayest”— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open.

            —John Steinbeck, East of Eden

 

 

Today it was the aspen buds

that ruined my heart.

 

One glimpse of them

through the window, and

 

for that moment,

the inner winter I’d constructed

 

out of should and shalt

fell down like bricks. Perhaps I could have

 

returned to work, but instead

stared at the soft gray

 

tufts of spring. How they defy

the stubborn chill. And almost

 

against my will, in me I felt

an opening I didn’t quite want,

 

and perhaps I didn’t want to hear

a small voice saying, you

 

have a choice, you

have a choice.

 

 

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The Blessing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on June 20, 2013| 3 Comments »

Sometimes I forget
the trees. It’s embarrassing
to admit. Like saying I forget

I have hands. But
days go by when I do not
consider them. And then

some mornings, today,
for instance, the trees,
like an Indian saint

hurling petals at her attendants,
throw their fluffy white catkins
into my hands, my hair,

into my everywhere I look
until everything is baptized
in white cotton down

and I half expect the giant limbs
to pull me into a great gray trunk
and hold me close, whispering

into my ear, in words so quiet
no one else can hear, my daughter,
my daughter, my daughter, my daughter.

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