Trees

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What A Tree Might Dream Of

It is the holiest transaction-
an unmet need being met.
Limbs that had lain empty,
filled with gifts of wind and light-
their presence gone unnoticed
til the advent of stillness and night
reaffirms their absence.

And in the doleful darkness,
rustling leaves whisper silent wishes
against night's cold and falling pall-
prayers for the warmth that has gone, though remembered
and slanting yellow rays that fall
on surfaces that lie shadowed-waiting
for morning's light to reappear.

In morning's silvered valley
the water runs and sings
it flows over stones and glinting sand
and crowns the river king.

Just beyond the leaf's shade
in banks carved from the earth
its royal amber length unwinds
a song of hope and birth.

The shadows won't contain it.
It's jeweled tones must be free
to course unfettered, lazy, laughing
in its kingdom 'neath the trees.

In my garden
rings of fire
herald falling days
Rose colored light
streams into my kitchen
through windows of
bluest sky
Red and red and
nothing but warmth-
leaves vivid
as beating hearts-
vines cloaked in the
remnants of summer.

,,,
these are some really great writings...great job!!!
ps you seem to be a true optimist...

Your first poem was wonderful. I can see the trees stretching and it aids in imagininig the roots stretching.

You replied to something I wrote a long time ago. It wouldn't let me PM you so this is my only option.

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=2338174#2338174

L&S - thanks. You're way too kind.
A true optimist - me? Yes. But only because I force myself to be that way. Actually, I naturally tend to be quite sarcastic and I'm very observant to boot- so I catch all those nagging little negative inconsistencies and inconveniences we all have to live with and through.
But I just decided one day that life would be too depressing and seem way too long if I lived it as a pessimist. I mean, what would there be to look forward to but more of the same old same old over and over again? I get bored too easily as it is- so I determined to look on the bright side- you know- try to find the beauty and the humor in it all.

But that last poem sucked. It was forced. I wanted to use the picture of the leaves, and I had the line- "leaves vivid as beating hearts" which I liked- so I forced the rest. (I'm telling you this because you asked in another thread "what inspires you to write" - I said reading - but I'm also a very visual person - so things I see also inspire me. In this case, those leaves - and the pink light they cast on my kitchen floor in the mornings - but it didn't work (in my opinion) as a poem). But thanks for your kind words anyhow.

"An Indian Summer Carol" ("Fidelis")

All day the dreamy sunshine seeps
In gold the yellowing beeches,
In softest blue the river sleeps
Among the island reaches.

Against the distant purple hills
Rich autumn tints are glowing;
Its blood-red wine the sumach spills,
Deep hues of carmine showing.

Upon the glassy stream the boat
Glides softly, like a vision;
And, with its shadow, seems to float
Among the isles Elysian.

About the plumy golden-rod
The tireless bee is humming,
While crimson blossoms star the sod
And wait the rover's coming.

The birch and maple glow with dyes
of scarlet, rose, and amber;
And, like a flame from sunset skies
The tangled creepers clamber.

The oaks a royal purple wear
Gold-crowned where sunlight presses;
The birch stands like a Dryad fair
Beneath her golden tresses.

So still the air -- so like a dream --
We hear the acorn falling;
And, o'er the scarcely rippled stream,
The loon's long-quavered calling.

The robin softly, o'er the lea,
A farewell song in trilling;
The squirrel flits from tree to tree
Its winter storehouse filling.


Like him, we too may gather store
from all this glorious Nature;
Then, leave, my friend, your bookish lore
And dreary nomenclature.

Leave the old thinkers to their dreams,
The treasures of the ages;
leave dusty scientific reams,
And study Nature's pages.

Her poetry is better far
Than all men write about her;
Old Homer's song of love and war
Had scarce been sung without her.

Haste to the wood, -- put books away,
They'll wait the tardy comer;
For them there's many a winter day,
But brief's our Indian summer.


*This is not an original poem. I can't remember where I heard it, but I love it and yesterday was such a perfect Indian Summer Day here, I wanted to use this poem with my picture of the tree. It expressed exactly how I felt and I knew I couldn't write a better one. I don't know who Fidelis is, and neither, apparently does anyone else (on the internet at least). They only say s/he is a Canadian poet- they think.

Hi aiden,

I clicked into this topic because all your writing is meaningful to me.
I haven't been here to read for SO LONG, and cannot plan when I will come or go-
But I love trees.
In a meloncholy moment, I asked myself, if we didn't have 'trees' what other magnificient thing could have sculpted our landscapes?
But we DO have trees, and they feel almost like friends, when we come to love them so.

I hope you discovered what is bothering you on email. (and resolved it)

Hi Ollady!! I saw your poem on one of the threads and your story about hanging the cup hook and was so happy to see you back, and am so happy you said hello to me.

I love trees too. I always have- to climb, to collect leaves from in the fall, to look at encased in ice in the winter, to watch bud and burst into leaf and flower in the spring.
They are like friends to me - pitiful isn't it- I'm such a dork sometimes, -but it sounds like you know how that is. Maybe that's why I've always liked talking to you.
But I wrote a poem last winter about not seeing birch trees in the winter (because there aren't very many birches in the part of England I'm living in - and I had moved from Maine where there are whole forests of birches -one of my favorite trees- especially in winter and fall).

Anyway- the driveway of the house I moved into this summer is lined with about eight silver birch trees, and we have a great old apple tree in the front yard and a very person-shaped tree beside the drive, big and old with two big branches that look like arms and bark that has knotted to look like a face. Amazing..and just in general there are so many ancient, interestingly shaped trees in England - I'll never run out of subject matter for this thread.

I don't know what's up with my e-mail. But I don't worry about it. It's certainly not a matter of life and death. I'm pretty adaptable and good at ignoring irritants. I just delete stuff - and poof- it's gone.
And as long as we have trees-and indian summer days like yesterday and today - I find it hard to focus on the negative.

Hope you are well. So nice to see you again...hope to talk to you later. *Thanks for your encouragement about my writing.

How beautiful! Thanks for posting those dadpad.

Summer Evening

It's there I would go back to if I could
to evening's sunlight and long shadows in that wood
Where grass green as life and waiting silence whispers
and sighing winds through dancing leaves sing and remember
the lengthened days of every June I've ever known
still waiting there amid the wood and sky and stone.

Beautiful one day burning the next.

that's beautiful in its own way Dadpad. Thanks for posting it.

By the way - I meant the picture was beautiful - kind of ghostly. I don't mean the fact that your forests are burning is beautiful - I've read about the fires you guys are having over there. Has the drought abated at all?

I understood the "beautifull" comment Aiden.

Stark maybe or eerie could be good words. eerie because when you are actually there the normal bush sounds and smells are absent.


we have burnt over 1 million hectares, however I feel we are out danger now as 12 mm of rain has fallen. In addition the rainfall has been pretty much statewide. we still have 2 monts of summer to go so anything could happen until we get 2 or 3 inches of rain. This usually happens in March or April.

Our ecology is a fire based ecology. many of the plants need fire to propagate so in a way the fires are in fact beautiful. A cleansing and rebirthing. I am setting up some photograpy sites to photograph the changes. I will take photos of the same sites at monthly intervals and try to make a slide show or similar from them. Just for my interests sake.

Heres another one, not really trees but still. That colouration is the true light conditions, created by the combination of smoke and summer sunlight.

That's an incredible photo- it gives a real sense of the silence you spoke of and the coloration does communicate a feeling of eeriness or otherwordliness as the sky is almost the same color as the ground. Are those hills or trees/bushes in the background?

I went out to Yellowstone in the summer of '98 and if I remember correctly it was the year before (in '97) that they had had millions of acres of forests burnt in summer brush fires. I agree- "stark" and "eerie" are good words for the blackened landscape and the silence. No place for the birds to nest anymore (for the next few years at least). I haven't been out there since. It would be interesting to see what it looks like now - ten years later.

I hope the rest of the summer goes well in terms of rainfall. That sounds like an interesting project- I'm sure it will be encouraging to watch the progression and regeneration.

Heading East at Dawn

Another morning, like
so many other violet mornings.
Light seeped from beneath bruised
clouds like last summer's warmth
revisiting, it floated-
loosening and unraveling in
orphan tendrils . And even that
billowing smoke stacked
mass imposed on clean and
cleansing dawn air was
beautiful- towering and wavering,
a white and ominous flower

But what I wanted to show you
were the limbs of trees stretched
naked - glazed with winter-
softly rising into lightening
charcoal skies. They dreamed
darkly of spring and the sun and the
whisper of leaves and shadows.
I watched as languid rays crept
over horizons as yet unnamed.
Two ivory trails scored furrows
in the blueness of the new day's
sky. Other travelers. They were leaving.
Did you see them from your distance?
Had you told them good-bye?

Prayer
Not alone-a part.

Birth

I was there when green
was born. I heard the morning
sing of wind and leaves.