Category: trees

Landscape’s State of the Soul

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The wild November come at last
Beneath a veil of rain;
The night wind blows its folds aside –
Her face is full of pain.

The latest of her race, she takes
The Autumn’s vacant throne:
She has but one short moon to live,
And she must live alone.

A barren realm of withered fields,
Bleak woods, and falling leaves,
The palest morns that ever dawned;
The dreariest of eves.

It is no wonder that she comes,
Poor month! With tears of pain;
For what can one so hopeless do
But weep, and weep again?
~Richard Henry Stoddard “November”

rainymares

A fine rain was falling, and the landscape was that of autumn. 
The sky was hung with various shades of gray,
and mists hovered about the distant mountains
– a melancholy nature. 
Every landscape is,
as it were,
a state of the soul,
and whoever penetrates into both
is astonished to find how much likeness there is in each detail.
~Henri Frederic Amiel

Leaves wait as the reversal of wind
comes to a stop. The stopped woods
are seized of quiet; waiting for rain
bird & bug conversations stutter to a
stop.

…the rain begins to fall. Rain-strands,
thin slips of vertical rivers, roll
the shredded waters out of the cloud
and dump them puddling to the ground.
Like sticks half-drowned the trees
lean so my eyes snap some into
lightning shapes, bent & bent.

Whatever crosses over
through the wall of rain
changes; old leaves are
now gold. The wall is
continuous, doorless. True,
to get past this wall
there’s no need for a door
since it closes around me
as I go through.
~Marie Ponsot from “End of October”

What is melancholy at first glance
glistens bejeweled
when studied up close.

It isn’t all sadness~
there is solace in knowing
the landscape and I share
an inner world of tears.

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The Dialect of Pure Being

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The world does not need words.
It articulates itself in sunlight, leaves, and shadows.
The stones on the path are no less real
for lying uncatalogued and uncounted.
The fluent leaves speak only 
the dialect of pure being…

The sunlight needs no praise piercing the rainclouds, 
painting the rocks and leaves with light, then dissolving
each lucent droplet back into the clouds that engendered it.
The daylight needs no praise, and so we praise it always–
greater than ourselves and all the airy words we summon.
~Dana Giola from “Words”

The words the world needs
is only the Word itself;
we exist
because He breathed breath into us,
saying it was good.

Whatever we have to say about His Creation
pales compared to His
it is good

But we try
over and over again
to use words of wonder and praise
to express our awe and gratitude and amazement
while painted golden by His breath of Light.

Kicking Up Leaves

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Just as, when you keep watch
on the ground ahead of where your boots
kick up the leaves, the path
goes vague and blurred, while

if you lift your eyes the far
reach of the trail comes lucid
as map; so when you look
at tomorrow through next year,

the way, otherwise
so tangled and burdensome,
clears. And if the leaves
are, as they likely are,

fallen from the trees around you,
then you get to look
deeper into things
than spring allowed.
~Charles O. Hartman “Autumn Ordinance”

I remember it
as October days are always remembered,
cloudless, maple-flavored,
the air gold and so clean
it quivers.
~Leif Enger, from Peace Like a River 

The air tastes like autumn,
quivering on my tongue –
no need for pumpkin-spice flavoring
to feel the change.

Revel in the gold and bronze tint to the sky,
the cinnamon nutmeg dusting of the trees,
the heavy sprinkling of hanging dew drops,
the crisp and shivery breezes,
the new landscape peering through bony branches.

Soon the ground will be frosty instead of dusty,
leaving a crunchy carpet rather than shady veil.

October is always a much-needed transition,
keeping us fresh gazing at new horizons,
reminding us to breathe deeply when life feels shallow,
remembering we are immersed
in the glory of a new day we have never lived before.

Hushed October Morning

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O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
~Robert Frost from “October”

After yesterday’s travel through curtains of heavy rainfall,
we abandoned plans to meet with family across state
for today’s memorial service, so returned home,
defeated, weary with sadness.

October is enough reminder of mortality,
with winds stripping trees to bare bones,
birds flocking and vacating,
bright leaves reduced to rusting dust.

This morning, the rain suspended,
its gray curtain pulled back briefly
to view what awaits beyond the haze:
this luminous brilliance, radiance, promise.

Slow down to look. Slow down to live. Slow.

The Sound of Leaves Falling

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~e.e.cummings “a leaf falls on loneliness”

Now constantly there is the sound,
quieter than rain,
of the leaves falling.

Under their loosening bright
gold, the sycamore limbs
bleach whiter.

Now the only flowers
are beeweed and aster, spray
of their white and lavender
over the brown leaves.

The calling of a crow sounds
Loud — landmark — now
that the life of summer falls
silent, and the nights grow.
~Wendell Berry “October 10” from New Collected Poems.

Know’st thou not at the fall of the leaf
How the heart feels a languid grief
Laid on it for a covering,
And how sleep seems a goodly thing
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?

And how the swift beat of the brain
Falters because it is in vain,
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf
Knowest thou not? and how the chief
Of joys seems — not to suffer pain?

Know’st thou not at the fall of the leaf
How the soul feels like a dried sheaf
Bound up at length for harvesting,
And how death seems a comely thing
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?
~Dante Rossetti “Autumn Song”

If I were a color, I am green, turning to gold,
turning to bronze, becoming dust.

If I were a sound, I patter like raindrops and children’s feet.
If I were a smell, I would be dry earth soaking up rain.
If I were a touch, I am a leaf letting go, landing softly.
If I were a taste, I would be warm and bittersweet.
If I were a season, I am the wistful goodbye hug of autumn.

But I am none of these, being enough for now;
this is enough for now.

Singing in the falling leaves,
I will come rejoicing,
Singing in the leaves.

An Unshadowed Light

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Within the ongoing havoc
the woods this morning is
almost unnaturally still.
Through stalled air, unshadowed
light, a few leaves fall
of their own weight.

                                       The sky
is gray. It begins in mist
almost at the ground
and rises forever. The trees
rise in silence almost
natural, but not quite,
almost eternal, but
not quite.

                      What more did I
think I wanted? Here is
what has always been.
Here is what will always
be. Even in me,
the Maker of all this
returns in rest, even
to the slightest of His works,
a yellow leaf slowly
falling, and is pleased.
~Wendell Berry “VII” from This Day

What more did I think I wanted?

What always has been and always will be:

Until I’m not able to hold on in the wind and rain,
may I be a spot of unshadowed light
in this dark and bleak world.

I’ll let go like a yellow leaf in autumn,
when the time comes,
if it pleases my Maker.

Dropping Leaves on Time

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Late in November, on a single night
Not even near to freezing, the ginkgo trees
That stand along the walk drop all their leaves
In one consent, and neither to rain nor to wind
But as though to time alone: the golden and green
Leaves litter the lawn today, that yesterday
Had spread aloft their fluttering fans of light.

What signal from the stars? What senses took it in?
What in those wooden motives so decided
To strike their leaves, to down their leaves,
Rebellion or surrender? and if this
Can happen thus, what race shall be exempt?
What use to learn the lessons taught by time,
If a star at any time may tell us: Now.
~Howard Nemerov “The Consent” from The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov

So many reasons these days to awake in the night,
eyes wide open, searching the dark seas of trouble
for some sign of hope,
for calm and peace in this stormy world.

When asleep again, I float among abundant
golden gingko leaves, each waving like a sail in the breeze,
before they tumble, swirling, to the ground, forming
deeply cushioned and comforting pools of yellow.

Navigating these brutal times, I am meant to be
anchored within some safer harbor – I treasure
the old ginkgo as it reaches over each cherished child
with its golden cloak of love and protection.

As Leaf Subsides to Leaf

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Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay.
~Robert Frost “Nothing Gold Can Stay”

Stay gold, Ponyboy, stay gold.
~S.E. Hinton from The Outsiders

Man’s innocence was lost
the moment we chose
knowledge over obedience.

The gold in our creation
sinks to grief as
we continue to make the same mistakes
again and again;

each dawn reenacts our beginnings
as leaf subsides to leaf
and each winter our endings.

Our only salvage is rescue
borne of selflessness,
an obedience beyond imagining.

Christ stays gold for us;
we rise illuminated like dawn.

In the Light-Charged Air

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When I saw the figure on the crown of the hill,
high above the city, standing perfectly still

against a sky so saturated with the late-
afternoon, late-summer Pacific light

that granules of it seemed to have come out
of solution, like a fine precipitate

of crystals hanging in the brightened air,
I thought whoever it was standing up there

must be experiencing some heightened state
of being, or thinking—or its opposite,

thoughtlessly enraptured by the view.
Or maybe, looking again, it was a statue

of Jesus or a saint, placed there to bestow
a ceaseless blessing on the city below.

Only after a good five minutes did I see
that the figure was actually a tree—

some kind of cypress, probably, or cedar.
I was both amused and let down by my error.

Not only had I made the tree a person,
but I’d also given it a vision,

which seemed to linger in the light-charged air
around the tree’s green flame, then disappear.
~Jeffrey Harrison “The Figure on the Hill” from Into Daylight

Who was it who suggested that the opposite of war
Is not so much peace as civilisation? He knew
Our assassinated Catholic greengrocer who died
At Christmas in the arms of our Methodist minister,
And our ice-cream man whose continuing requiem
Is the twenty-one flavours children have by heart.
Our cobbler mends shoes for everybody; our butcher
Blends into his best sausages leeks, garlic, honey;
Our cornershop sells everything from bread to kindling.
Who can bring peace to people who are not civilised?
All of these people, alive or dead, are civilised.
~Michael Longley “All of These People”  from Collected Poems

Who among us appear
in the light-charged air,
visible on the crown of the hill of life –
who might be mistaken
for a martyr or a saint or a visionary,
when each one of us is
merely a person
responsible to a family,
committed to help friends,
dedicated to serve a community,
placed in this world to steady a broken civilization.

There is the simple truth that we need a person
with roots deep in the ground,
branches that reach up and out,
bearing fruit to share with those around us.

But surely not
this misery, not this blight, not this trouble,
certainly not these murders,
which only bears and shares
a heart-rending, horrible grief.

The Old Lost Road

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They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.

Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate,
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because they see so few.)
You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods.
But there is no road through the woods.
~Rudyard Kipling “The Way Through the Woods”

Nature has a way of covering our offending tracks,
given time and left alone.

We think we’ve built a lasting impression,
clearing the path for easy passage,
forging ahead into the future.

Yet no invitation is needed
for the overgrowth to reclaim
the road some folks traveled,
once upon a time.

Now the old lost road is overwhelmed
by the mists and mosses of time;
may it stay buried in the past
as we pass through,
unnoticed and oblivious.

photo by Emily VanderHaak