Sunday, September 14, 2014

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

Friday, August 8, 2014

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

Friday, July 25, 2014

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


Saturday, July 19, 2014

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





Tuesday, July 8, 2014

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
                     

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

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

Thursday, June 26, 2014

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

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

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

Saturday, June 21, 2014

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



Thursday, April 17, 2014

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