We’ve moved to the suburbs;
evening walks are filled
with the silhouettes of tall trees
against the darkening sky,
their simple elegance poignant enough
to make me want to paint them.
As we walk along the winding sidewalks
and down the forest-lined road,
we are surrounded by the smell
of summer blackberries
bountiful enough to make me 12 again—
a grinning girl in cut-off jeans
licking her berry-stained fingers
and rejoicing in being
at home in this world.
In solemn stillness,
twilight trees approach the sky–
touch eternity.
The trees are so stable,
their moods have such endurance.
They hold on for months
to the bare bitterness of winter,
the silence,
the absence of even a rustling leaf.
Then the trees embrace the sweet joyfulness of spring
in a long coquettish smile,
a blossom-blush lasting months.
Afterwards, the trees sail into the smooth serenity of summer,
wearing their regal wreaths with proud satisfaction.
Even the flaming, flickering colours of fall flash across their faces for months,
the trees, with their moods more stable than mine,
for I am but a tiny body of water
wrapped in skin.
My thinly guarded surface subject to tremors of wind,
the harassment of a sudden hailstorm
or the steady pounding of rain.
I’ve been know to get icicles in my eyelashes
tears of pain frozen before fully released.
Some things are better to let go of quickly.
In all this variable moodiness,
this passionate intensity and depth of feeling,
I am not alone,
for are we not all but small bodies of water
(97% H2O)
wrapped in skin,
the tides in our hearts tugged about by not just the moon,
but by the moods of all the other bodies of water
bumping around us
in this space
that is earth.
Bare New Year’s branches
Bereft of last year’s splendour
Grasp the grisly sky
These tiny white tendrils
perched like innocent ears atop a mossy log
listening to the secrets of the forest…
What stories could they tell us, if they had mouths?
For they have heard the early morning trilling of birds
when everything else was silent
save for dew drops dripping from tall trees
bearded with curly mosses.
They have listened to the lapping of water
at the lake’s edge,
the liquid murmurs flowing over submerged logs
soaked with sunken memories
–mine, too–
ones I dare not extract from their watery repose
lest I tumble in and get absorbed by their somnolence.
These little glowing ears…
they could tell of green and growing things,
of red and rotting things,
and of the perfect patience of trees
which live and die and even in death
keep giving life.
There is nothing like
strolling in sweet solitude
shortly before dusk
There’s a whisper of sadness in the crisp November air;
solemn raindrops adorn the bare tree branches
like bejewelled tears.
The sun peaks out and smiles wanly
at the confused pink flowers
which have emerged so late in the day…
How soon will the cold kill them,
turning their girlish blush into brown rot?
Memories creep closer like Christmas.
Loss hangs at the back of my throat—
waiting to pounce!
Bare branches on the ground are simply lifeless
but against the sky—
bony fingers reaching up
to grasp immortality!
Since sorrow hit my heart I’ve become more of a photographer. I hoard the consolation of beauty the way a dragon does pearls.
There is something about the ruggedness of naked branches, tangled and bare, but alluring, that speaks to me. They seem to say, “We have been stripped of everything but hope, and though we seem lifeless, sap pulses within us, and new buds will sprout again from our fingertips.”
Just East Of Crazy Land 