Summer Blackberries

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.

Bodies of Water

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.

Ears of the Forest 

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. 

Whisper 


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!

The Consolation of Beauty

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.”

  

     

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