Tree Love ~ Communion by the River

“Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life.” Rachel Carson

Walking around your trunk,

Taking pictures of roots

Exposed by years

of river risings,

About to continue on,

I felt the call: Come

and took two steps back.

My hand moved to your mossy curling bark.

There it was ~

The subtle vibration

Holding my hand in place

Asking me to stay

Inviting me to commune

with the depth of wisdom

Drawn from the Earth,

Compelling me to express gratitude,

to acknowledge a knowing

Deeper than words.

I looked up at your branches

still bare in early spring,

draped over the singing river.

My heart opened like a blossom

Wanting to stay forever

Feeling the quiet endurance of life.

~~~

Hiking along a river in the North Carolina mountains, I touched many trees. This one called me back after I had stepped carefully over its exposed roots. I think maybe it’s a river birch – hard to be sure with no leaves yet and lots of moss on the bark. I hope to see it again with leaves in the summer.

Click each photo to see it all.

Approaching the tree

Roots on the trail

Curly bark with moss

Looking up

Tree Lover and Tree

Farewell my friend

~~~

Thursday Tree Love is hosted by Parul Thakur

on the second and fourth Thursday of each month.

For more tree love, visit Parul

by clicking HERE.

#ThursdayTreeLove | When Great Trees Fall, or My Father’s Tree

I’m sharing this post from Chandra to save her experience and Maya Angelou’s poem about great trees and great souls. May we always remember.

Pics and Posts

Yesterday, while I was considering using the tree above for today’s #ThursdayTreeLove, I received a text message from my Raven, asking if I were in my office. I had a moment of excitement thinking she was visiting from California and was on her way to see me. Sadly, that was not the case. However, she had her sister, who lives in the area, deliver a beautiful “forever bouquet” with an elegant note tucked inside that only an English major could write [Biased? Perhaps]. Her note included the last verse of Maya Angelou’s poem below.

When Great Trees Fall
Maya Angelou

When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.

When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare…

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A Quote from Maya Angelou’s “A Brave and Startling Truth”

“…Out of such chaos, of such contradiction

We learn that we are neither devils nor divines….”

Maya Angelou

This quote is from Dr. Maya Angelou’s powerful poem, “A Brave and Startling Truth.”

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth

And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms

When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil

When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze

When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse

When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets

Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world

When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.”

― Maya Angelou, A Brave and Startling Truth

One-Liner Wednesday and Just Jot it January are brought to us by Linda Hill.

For more one-liners and jottings, visit Linda’s post HERE.

Thursday Tree Love: Breathe, a Poem

Thanksgiving Day 2021

For this edition of Tree Love, I offer a poem by Becky Helmsley interspersed with tree photos.

Breathe, by Becky Helmsley

“She sat at the back, and they said she was shy,

She led from the front and they hated her pride,

They asked her advice and then questioned her guidance,

They branded her loud, then were shocked by her silence,

When she shared no ambition, they said it was sad,

So she told them her dreams and they said she was mad,

They told her they’d listen, then covered their ears,

And gave her a hug while they laughed at her fears,

And she listened to all of it thinking she should,

Be the girl they told her to be best as she could,

But one day she asked what was best for herself,

Instead of trying to please everyone else,

So she walked to the forest and stood with the trees,

She heard the wind whisper and dance with the leaves,

She spoke to the willow, the elm and the pine,

And she told them what she’d been told time after time,

She told them she felt she was never enough,

She was either too little or far far too much,

Too loud or too quiet, too fierce or too weak,

Too wise or too foolish, too bold or too meek,

Then she found a small clearing surrounded by firs,

And she stopped…and she heard what the trees said to her,

And she sat there for hours not wanting to leave,

For the forest said nothing, it just let her breathe”

Becky Helmsley

Thursday Tree Love is hosted by Parul Thakur on the second and fourth Thursday of each month. For more tree love, visit Parul at: https://www.happinessandfood.com/thursdaytreelove-121/

Anticipate the Best, but be Prepared

(Today’s prompt for Just Jot it January is Anticipation.)

Let’s anticipate good things.

Anticipate peace in spite of tension.

Anticipate love that’s right on time.

Anticipate a healthy planet before it’s too late.

Then we have to work for those things.

Prepare for the possibilities.

But don’t obsess on the fears.

Let us feed our hopes well,

and comfort our fears.

Lock the door and turn off the stove.

But don’t go back and check it three times.

Maybe just a double check.

Reduce, reuse, recycle

Put energy into clean energy.

Find common ground.

Anticipate healing.

~~~

Just Jot it January is brought to us by our host, Linda Hill.

Thanks to Pamela for today’s prompt: Anticipation.

Click here for details.

Thursday Tree Love: A Poem and a Willow

WHEN I AM AMONG THE TREES
by Mary Oliver

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”

I love weeping willows and looked for at least a year for one to accompany Mary Oliver’s poem that mentions them. What a surprise when I noticed this one hiding in plain sight behind my pharmacy which is located on a busy street. The willow, along with a water loving cypress, seem to be part of a small retention pond and drainage system created behind the pharmacy. There’s an auto repair business to the right, so this system probably filters a lot of city waste.

It looks like somebody’s mowed the grass recently near the cypress.

I wonder if the cage like structure could be a trash collecting device.
One day, I’ll investigate further.

Thursday Tree Love is hosted by Parul Thakur on the second and forth Thursday of each month. For more tree love visit Paurl at the link below:

https://www.happinessandfood.com/thursdaytreelove-114/

Thursday Tree Love: Close Encounter with Tall Pine

“…there can be occasions when we suddenly and involuntarily find ourselves loving the natural world with a startling intensity, in a burst of emotion which we may not fully understand, and the only word that seems to me to be appropriate for this feeling is joy”
                                                                                       ― Michael McCarthy

The vast network of roots

covered in hummus

provided cushioned support

Strong yet giving

So that each step along the trail

reverberated a soft drum beat

To my heart

As the river played along.

Old granite offered security

when the trail narrowed

or became steep while

Trunks and branches gave balance.

A tree called to me

Not with words or sounds

But reaching out in the cool breeze.

I laid hands on the rough bark

Sharing energy, healing,

Knowing without words

The power, the stability

Of this old, but not so old

Sentinel of the river forest.

I leaned into the power,

Inhaling its gifted oxygen.

Then let my eyes

Travel up, up, up

to the crown in the sky

Blessed with golden light.

My spirit filled with new life

My heart wanted to to stay forever

In wild communion.

Thursday Tree Love is hosted by Parul Thakur on the second and fourth Thursday of each month. For more tree love, visit:

#ThursdayTreeLove – 95

Blue Wave Dream

 

Can you guess how I got this photo? I’ll tell you later.

 

 

 

We walked across rolling hills of rich earth.

One woman ran far ahead, the other still in sight.

I followed slowly

wiggling my toes into layers of red-brown soil

that turned into golden sand

then into a slope of lush green grass.

My friend Dorothy sat down on a piece of cardboard

And slid down the hill with a smile on her face.

Having no cardboard, I did not want to get grass stains on my white skirt.

So, I danced and skipped down the cool grass,

ran up the next rise, and stood on a hill.

 

The beach below was deserted

except for Dorothy wading

into the royal azure water.

A swell as big as a house

Rose slowly in front of her.

She started swimming up the blue wave

that crested and then stood still,

Huge, peaceful, translucent.

 

I waded into the water

and saw her way up near the top of the wave.

She pointed below her at a hound dog

swimming under the water

like a fish, or a dolphin dog,

completely comfortable paddling

through the liquid blue Jello,

The dog breached occasionally to say hello,
while the giant wave just hung there waiting.

As I swam up the swell, I saw the hound dog

turn into a statue and drift down

to become an underwater memorial

like Christ of the Abyss.

 

Dorothy and I swam in the luxurious blueness

as we watched out feet wave like kelp

And the dog statue, now far below,

faded from sight, though not from memory.

We did not want to see beyond the swell, wanting it to last forever.

But finally, we reached the crest

On the other side a bridge

led back to “civilization.”

We swam that way because we knew it was our destination.

A soft beach rose to meet my feet.

I must have been dawdling

Because my friends were way ahead.

I followed their trail into a building

But didn’t see them.

I  desperately wanted to talk about our experience in the water,

To hold on to it, and know that it had really happened.

 

Then I realized I was in a hospital

walking down a hallway.

Confused, I thought I saw a room with a pool.

but when I looked in I didn’t see a pool,

Just a couch.

It was like a waiting room.

Children with light brown skin

Sat in the corner.

I wanted to tell them a story about a big blue wave

That lifted us up in the air and held us

For a moment when time slowed

And gave us a glimpse of something deeper.

But that’s when my dream ended.

 

 

 

….

 

There have been many times in my life when I dreamed about giant waves that were frightening. This dream was very different. This giant, mysterious wave was patient and peaceful. I enjoyed seeing my friend Dorothy in my dream. The hound dog was Doodle who we lost several months ago. For a beautiful underwater video of  Christ in the Abyss, click here.

 

 

 

 

I created the top photo by turning this bottle upside down and cropping the photo. Colored glass bottles are some of my favorite things. I collect mostly blue bottles, but also amber, green, yellow, and a couple red and purple ones. 

Thursday Tree Love: Winter Magnolias and a Poem

 

On a  breezy, gray winter day

Leaves rustled overhead.

It must have been magnolias

since their neighbor’s leaves were shed.

The living leaves clicked softly

Chiming in with whispers

Knowing some would soon make room

for lemon scented flowers.

 

Some of the older magnolia leaves will drop off in early spring to make room for flowers. The magnolia flowers I see in my neighborhood have big, white petals with a hint of yellow and a lemony scent.

I thought this was an interesting trunk, Do you see a heart?

 

 Here’s an older photo of a winter magnolia on a sunny day:

Thursday Tree Love is a photo feature hosted by Parul Thakur on the second and fourth Thursday of each month. For more Tree Love, visit:

https://www.happinessandfood.com/thursdaytreelove-80/

 

For the Whales

Photo by Robert Pittman / NOAA

I submitted my poem “Take No More Prisoners” to this poetry festival/contest.  I’m not sure how they select winners, but it wouldn’t hurt to take a look and see if you like it.

Thank you!

https://festivalforpoetry.com/2018/03/17/read-poetry-take-no-more-prisoners-by-joanne-macco/