Tree...why am I only now seeing you...

Tree...
 
...why am I only now seeing you
when it's clear you've been there for some time
defying your official taxonomy as a 
sprawling shrub? 

You are hardly that but a proud, though spindly,
specimen, deep green needles crimson arils strong
stiff bole sporting branchlets just bursting to be seen.

Taxus canadensis, you emerged here
beneath the taller trees when no one was looking
(no one usually is), hid in their shadows
making no fuss until the day the light found you and
I saw you leaning there
waiting to be noticed. 

And once again there was no one to share this with 
no one else who cares about yew trees
and how one might come to be here
nestled into this cluttered wood just another 
ground-hugging miracle...



...

Trees...it's as if you all pulled up stakes...

Trees...

....it's as if you all pulled up stakes

and followed me here

always knowing where to find me

where you

or your kin

continue to assure me

that my days will never

lack you

that my love for you

has not gone unnoticed.

　

Still now after all this time

after seeing your now abandoned

spots the vast swaths of ground

where you once stood

desecrated

bare now

empty of you

of your lush

majestic and sage

presences.

　

But then I slip out of bed

and there you are outside my window

beckoning like some playful friend

eager to commiserate here

of all places

where to others

to those who think

that fewer of you would be

preferable

just something

to be taken down

that more light is better

and that some of you

lean just a little too far

for comfort.

　

Your topmost leaves

tremble in the late-summer breeze

fill the large gap

that my leaving you

not once but twice

created but how silly of me

to fret for even just a moment

that you aren't capable of this

of healing this wound

of once again

filling my days.

　

　

Trees...I heard you last night...

Trees...

...I heard you last night sighing

long and mournfully your tops

swaying in the wind gusts

tapping each other at times

making snapping cracking sounds

as your newly young spring-stiff limbs

touched met and none of you

the worse for it.

　

I heard you through my window

open always despite the cold

and wondered again what it was

you were sighing about or do I

even need to ask when at dawn or

nearly so I creep from my bed again

toward a light that flashes as faces

and arbitrary dictums in

my still-dark early-morning living room

that hasn't seen the light of day yet.

　

The faces don't care what time it is

there is no curtain dropping nor anthem

playing to a snowy screen at 11 p.m. anymore

hasn't been for a very long time now so

things come at us always from all sides no end to it

lives shattered and worlds tilted in

the wee hours no regard for the rest we need

respite from a horror not possible

back there among you.

　

So when I've taken all I can I crawl back

weary to my bed pull the curtain aside

to see your tops still swaying hear

your entish sighs unceasing you

who make sense who stand resigned who

render the word ugly irrelevant because

it simply does not exist in your world

as it does in mine or perhaps as mere

shadows that you dismiss summarily

at dawn.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1530989876

Trees...what are you making of us...

Trees...

　

...what are you making of us

who bask beneath you

at more serendipitous

carefree times

enjoy the shade you provide

your riotous spring

summer and fall colors

that mesmerize us leave us

breathless wordless...

　

...are you shaking your great heads

in consternation puzzling

at our inability to grasp certain truths

at our confusion if only we might

content ourselves to stand patient

as pines stoic as oaks

demure as maples

pliable as birches...

　

...there is something to be said

for standing still allowing things

to take their natural courses without

our needing to move a single branch

or twig that time and the world

know enough to resolve them

with none of us the worse for wear

like so many of you who bounce back

joyously each year from winter's

assault...

　

...rather we grasp and claw

struggle toward what we already know

to be so

but refuse to take in through

our own bark fearful

always that we'll lose our way

stray become lost if only we knew

that all we need do is stand still

and wait it out like trees...

　

like you...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1530989876

http://www.andreasweb.com/rachellovejoy/



Trees....I go to you

Trees...

I go to you

as to no others

my shame exposed

my finiteness revealed

I bow before

your kind

who have known

the angst

of ages

been toppled

in the name

of progress

uprooted

for beauty's sake

you who are

beauty incarnate

who welcome

my imperfection

my crude exterior

that you pierce

continually

to make me

yours

　

always

you speak without words

not like we

with our sounds

and inadequate

sentiment

you speak

with leaves

with sighs

and stirrings

with bits of light

that come together

into thought

idea

warning

　

telling stories

sharing secrets

revealing truths

known only to you

standing

as you have

these ages

patient

resigned

the wind

the sun

the rain

and birds

your only friends

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

Trees...unless we were there...

Trees...

　

...unless we were there when you first took hold

on some dark night not far beneath the soil's surface

when whatever seed produced you split open

revealing all its truths the promise of root and crown

introduced you to the world we can't know

how long you lived how long you held birds

in your arms made space for tree houses

or sheltered lovers from spring rains

thrilled us with myriad greens in summer

and riots of red orange and gold in autumn

　

we can't know this fact irrelevant

as it is in most cases for why should we care

how old you are or how long it took you to get there

where you stood with others who made it

the struggle the merciless winds you bore the ice

that threatened to do you in several times

it only makes it all the harder to bear when they

finally do away with you leaving

just a stump all that's left of what you were

　

I remember a pine tree whose layers

from its heartwood out

numbered close to a hundred and how

I stood there bent over it knowing how long

it had taken it to get there and how quick its demise

painless unless you allow how fickle Time is

how quick to unravel all that she has pushed along

to the here and the now toward some culmination

that means nothing

I did not thrill to that

　

but then when you are gone

we know don't we

we count rings run our fingers lovingly and respectfully

across your damp remains your uncharacteristic flatness

where once stood lushness and character

and say things like "ah" and "oh"

and marvel that we can do it

forgetting all that you once did for us

all that you once were

　

even in death you do this much for us

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

Trees....even when I am not with you...

Trees

　

...even when I am not with you

I am with you

if only through my window

as you shed your fall attire and wait to don

your winter finery

　

a few of you left recently

decimated by the tree service

saws

　

I sat by watching as they

toppled you sent you crashing to the ground

where you sent shudders through me for

the last time and then

　

someone came to erase what was left

grind away at your soul

at the records of your years

your dust fell

mingled with the soil

and then I went out

to claim you

to scatter as much as I could of you

among my flowers

where you will never be forgotten

at least not by them

　

and now it's as if nothing was

ever there at all

as if you'd never stood there

straining beneath the taller trees that had

the advantage all along but you never gave up

reaching for the sun

ever

　

nor will I

　

ever

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

Trees...you sing the same song

Trees

you sing the same song

no matter where you are

sending it on the wind

and on birds' wings

tucking it into the soul

of whatever walks beneath you

soft as sighs

loud as howls

ever original

ever yours

and whoever deigns to hear

your dirge or lament

your reverant chants

nocturnal chorus

whispers at dawn

you sing the same song

no matter where I am

assumed and redeposited

elsewhere

miles from where I began

as long as you are there

I am where I need to be

I am home

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

　

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...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

　

Trees...at first light...

Trees

　

at first light

 

is when I remember

that you've been there

all night

that you waited

through rain and wind

listening

as the pond froze

snapping its resistance

ostensibly

before succumbing

before showing you

your morning faces

your disheveled wild

winter look

the one I will see

until May

and will somehow love

because

 you will always be there

at first light

waiting for me

to remember

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

 

 

Trees...and there it appears...

One day the trees went out to anoint a king for themselves. They said to the olive tree, ‘Be our king.’ But the olive tree answered, ‘Should I give up my oil, by which both gods and humans are honored, to hold sway over the trees?’ Next, the trees said to the fig tree, ‘Come and be our king.’ But the fig tree replied, ‘Should I give up my fruit, so good and sweet, to hold sway over the trees?’ Then the trees said to the vine, ‘Come and be our king.’ But the vine answered, ‘Should I give up my wine, which cheers both gods and humans, to hold sway over the trees?’ Finally all the trees said to the thornbush, ‘Come and be our king.’ The thornbush said to the trees, ‘If you really want to anoint me king over you, come and take refuge in my shade; but if not, then let fire come out of the thornbush and consume the cedars of Lebanon!’ Judges 9: 8-15

　

Trees

 

 

　

and there it appears

lost in a sea of verses

the inevitable mention of you

who are second only to the gods

in wisdom

even they saw fit to use you

in parables

make of you allegorical

sentient

knowing beings

weeping ever

through your leaves.

　

how many other weavers

of words

have given you voice

shape substance

worth mystery

longevity?

　

fools we are

to think

you merely stand there mute

disinterested

consenting to be

stripped bare each year

knowing in your heartwood

that you will be called

to even greater glory

when the peepers sing

and the days once more

grow long.

　

kings all

serving no one

your place at his right hand

assured

the ancient entish among you

smiling

who have known

all along.

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