Trees...where you are

...is where I belong where 

your leaves filter

the impurities that come at me

daily where you cast it all

to the four winds

where none of it matters

where the rain dilutes

and devalues where

evil disintegrates into

just more particles

that fall to earth

as food for worms

and other crawling things.

Here beneath your

sheltering arms I am

as untouchable as you are

and will like you one day

regenerate as something

no one recognizes

or cares about and when

the saw buzzes or

the lightning strikes

we will meet again

in such a place

where evil holds no sway

where truth lives.


https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS

Trees....it's that time again...

...it's that time again in a place

called August that is not quite sure

who it is or where it wants to be

with summer that has already begun

taking on the tinge of memory again?

with fall the season of visual overload

and angst at what lies ahead?

stay with me here awhile as we ponder

this development that crept up on us

when we weren't looking that went the way

of muggy nights and steamy days when

even the birds were silent and the moon

strained toward its usual intensity

moody as it slipped in and out from behind

mists it never ordered

soon it will all change again and i'll behold

you all in your autumn splendor brief interlude

before the real fall

before the sentence ends

the period applied.


https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS

Trees...you have no idea...

...you have no idea

what it's like for us

out here living under

our delusion of control

where we move about

arranging and rearranging

our lives

and our worlds

in such a way as

to please ourselves

and enhance our level of smugness

this much righteousness

is tiring after awhile

the endless effort of

asserting dominance

wearying to one who would

much rather wrap herself

around you and grow bark

sprout twigs don leaves

know what it's like

to not have to worry

about any of this

and on rainy nights

to know what it's like

to converse with things

that mostly just stand

about during the day

every day

their tops the only thing

moving their roots

living proof that all things

adapt and that sometimes

yes

they even speak


https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS

Trees....what's it like...

To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul. It is one of the hardest to define.~Simone Weil

Trees

what's it like to stand there for so long

that you forget where you are

and know nothing but that

you've never been

anywhere else

but right there

knowing nothing at all

about what it's like

to be yanked up by the hair

and set down where you

don't want to be

but have no say

in the matter

of course it does happen to you

from time to time when

the wind catches you

in its embrace and

topples you to the ground

in a crazy dance

or someone with a saw comes along

thinking they know better

and then you find out

that there's no going back

that rootless is your

new state

if you're even

still standing

at all

it's said that assumptions are dangerous

especially if they have to do

with trees and feeling rooted

because you know

and always have

that it's just an illusion as

much as it is

when we say

we can

go home again

when there really is no such place

and never was.




https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS

Trees....she said....

...she said that you are

our link to the sky
that without the sky's
great canvas your own
majesty might be lost
and I said I got it
that without you
the idea of sky would
grow smaller and that
neither of you would
amount to much


it's true for I only
see your grandeur
from far below from
where I sometimes
cannot even see your face
yet I know it's there
looking outward feeling
me down here wishing
I could see you smile
the way trees do
by merely being


https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS
                     

Trees...I haven't forgotten...

Trees


I haven't forgotten you know
those others the ones I thought
I could live without whose every
bough and twig I recall even now
even this far away or this close.


I remember still the way they had
that protective way that
had they spoken would have
comforted me much as my mother's
voice did once in another life.


I left them, too, as I had her but
looked back often wishing I hadn't
and now they're all gone she them
and all I have left are the shadows
that fall before me
your shadows
not theirs
not hers


https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS

Trees...I can tell...

Trees


I can tell when you're having it rough
when your leaves hang limp with thirst
and your bark looks even more wizened
somehow and like me you long for rain
for that moldy smell that rises from
the earth when it first makes contact
and sends dust motes flying in all
directions


                                              and then
I can almost hear you drinking pulling
it all up desperate for your share and
when there isn't enough when the clouds
are stingy with their gifts the sun
merciless how somehow you share so
that there is enough to go around so
that not one of you falters or at least
not for long


                                              before the
sky gives up its goodness again when
it rains for days on end and what you
can't use the ponds and streams store
away in a spirit of collaboration not
seen at the upper levels of existence
in this place where we creatures of a
lesser sort persist in deeming ourselves
enlightened.


https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS

Trees...beyond you...

Trees


beyond you lies another world
that deals in things that have nothing
to do with tenacity and perseverance
patience and fortitude but with fear
of failure to rise above the pettiness
the mundane and the mediocre


do you feel fear is that what
I hear at night when the wind blows
so hard that I think you will fall over
finally come crashing down against
your green wills and lie waiting for
the decomposers to claim you


is that you howling through the
shadows boughs bending in all
directions at the whim of the thing
greater than you that has you in its
grip and won't relent until it is
satisfied that it has bent you


beaten you into submission.
Imagine my awe as the light
builds and there you are again
almost magically my faith restored
in my living fortress my barricade
against what can only diminish me.


https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS

Trees...I wait with you...

I wait with you


have acquired your patient ways
your resignation to fates unknown
and beyond your control much as
you are defrocked each year perhaps
against your will if trees have wills


I have a will


but like you I often let the wind take
me where it will forfeit my power
go along for rides whose destinations
have not always been unpleasant where
there has always been something to learn


And now I wait


not far from you never far as near
as an arm out the window or a walk
down off the deck a drive through
shaded tunnels passageways made
by you in that way you have


https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS

Trees...you have done it again...

Trees

you have done it again

amazed me with your resilience

enthralled me with your unrelenting

stoicism against the elements

and lived to tell of it

in your own way

with your stiff upper lips

and haughty postures making

even your ancient bent backs

works of art

you tell of this storm or that

of winds wild enough

to blow roofs off

and hats

turn parasols

wrong side out

much

to the dismay of those who

mistakenly persist

in defying you

fools not to see

how you survived

another winter scourge

how silly of them

not to hear your deep wisdoms

your sap coursing

your buds groaning

your words

that they mistake for

creakings and bark splittings

and rustlings as though

desiccated old

oak leaves had nothing

left to say


https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS