trees – Page 2 – Poetry, Short Prose and Walking

Prairie Trees

It’s flat for farming and the trees
Are tall and silent like the corn.
Farmers left a few of these.
In the sunlight both are worn.
Shadows show what dominates
On these plains with open skies.
The urban far off concentrates
Dreams but here the roots are wise.

Text: Linked to dVerse Poetics. Mish hosts. She’s featuring the photography of Sharon Knight.

Photo: Sharon Knight took the featured photo. She titled it “for b.”. Other photos by her can be seen at SunEarthSky — Meditations from the Midwest.

Family Trees

One fall when leaves were gone the clearings came. Those worth the haul were taken, but the rest would have to carry on. As if a flame had come to burn this forest’s ancient best, the parent trees, the wisdom they possessed, the ground turned bare as youthful family trees preserved their hold on Earth tenaciously.

Linked to dVerse Meeting the Bar with Bjorn hosting on the theme of silence. I formatted the Chaucerian stanza as prose to highlight where I would expect a reader to enjoy the silence. I use line breaks to mark the completion of metrical patterns not to indicate silence although sometimes I run out of breath and need to pause before I carry on.

Photo: “Thinning” by the author.

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Winter wears a gloomy sky.
Yesterday came snow.
Today as well we’ll get some, too.
Tomorrow? I don’t know,
But if it dumps a load on us
I will wonder when
We’ll get to feel warm spring love leap
That brings back joy again.

Text: Linked to dVerse Quadrille where Grace is hosting using “leap” as the prompt word.

Photos: “Sun Through Overcast Sky”, above, and “Lake Michigan and Overcast Sky”, below, by the author and linked to K’lee and Dale’s Cosmic Photo Challenge with theme “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow”.

Let the Light Shine in

Autumn changes focus on school schedules and condo movements, but now for our children, not for us. It’s the same with Spring. In between these events, like sunlight going through the leaves of trees, there is viewing the lake and parkways where trees can reach for the sun because the buildings are small enough for them to have a chance.

LIGHT THROUGH PATIENT TREES
BUILDINGS BLOCK THE AUTUMN SKY
BOTH PROVIDE COOL SHADE

Text: Linked to dVerse Haibun Monday. Toni is hosting with the theme “season changes”.
Linked to Jilly’s Casting Bricks – September Challenge. Consider this one part (first or second) of a double haibun and add another haibun.

Photo: “Sidewalk Flower with Dark Sun” below by the author linked to K’lee and Dale’s Cosmic Photo Challenge with the theme “Let the Sun Shine in” and Mundane Monday.

Midsummer Daydream

I walk toward Sunset Ridge Woods busy dreaming while this summer day is busy being beautiful. Last night I read a fable telling about fairies guarding a forest glen.¹ They punished cutting trees in their creative ways using the imaginations of the trespasser. They were more effective than fines–and swifter. Natural retribution could take years or generations. Those fairies kept the riff-raff in line–if you believed in them.

Today governments take over guarding forest preserves. Perhaps they do permit what some might call over-harvesting where it’s out-of-sight and wild. Like beauty, one guy’s rightful use is another guy’s misuse. Governments keep the opportunists in line–if you believe they can. I wonder how my mind would survive a trespass on a fairy glen? Maybe they still rule in these subtle ways even without my acknowledgment of their existence. If so, who could stop them?

SOUNDS OF SHRILL TRAFFIC
SUMMER WARMS THIS SUNSET TRAIL
SHELTERED BY STILL TREES

¹“The Man Who Had No Story” in Jane Yolen’s Favorite Folktales From Around the World.

Linked to dVerse Haibun Monday hosted by Grace with prompt “Summer”.
Photo: “Green Midsummer Madness” by the author linked to K’lee and Dale‘s Cosmic Photo Challenge with prompt “midsummer madness”.

Tree Shadows

As a shadow moves it leaves little behind except a slightly cooler temperature that lasts briefly, but it will be back.

I enter Chipilly Woods looking for trees and finding their sharp shadows crossing the trail. I see the muddied path ahead from recent spring rains and so I turn back. I don’t mind the wetness but by returning now I would leave no more than a faint footprint behind.

footprints on the path
water filters through spring soil
shadows turn with day

Linked to dVerse Haibun Monday hosted by Toni Spencer with the theme of “The Shadow Knows”.
Linked also to NaPoWriMo2017 Day 3. My Day 2 poem was a limerick posted yesterday on Madeleine Begun Kane’s Limerick-Off.
Photo: “Shadows and Footprints” by the author.

Forest Bath

We bathe in wonders. Some manipulate aspects of these aided by theories of gravity or electromagnetism. I try to stand tall with shoulders back so I can breathe deeply which keeps my heart open to resonate with Whatever. I step off the street and enter a dense forest trail. As I move deeper into the woods human sounds smooth out into hums softer than the crunch of my feet on last autumn’s leaves.

Walking this path, I intend to pay attention, but I miss almost everything.

When I choose not to enter some woods, it sprinkles me with thoughts of regret. If I do enter, but pay no attention to anything, I am still caressed. Someday I might understand the rapture of every creature like that of the worms as they return autumn’s mulch to the trees, but, right now, I can’t separate out those drops of this forest bath. I walk. When the path ends I feel refreshed.

WORMS WORK WINTER MULCH
RIVER DRAINS AWAY THE SNOW
FOOTSTEPS CRUMPLE LEAVES

Linked to dVerse Haibun Monday hosted by Toni aka kanzen sakura (www.kanzensakura.wordpress.com) who writes, “In 1980, the Japanese began a type of healing/meditation/relaxation process called shinrin-yoku (森林浴) or literally, forest bathing.” The prompt is to try this yourself and report on your experiences.

As Despair Grew Weary of Despair

Once upon a time in a wood
Where a brook flowed and ancient trees stood
It was dark with despair
Then a rose blossomed there
Through its thorns bringing hope where it could.

Written for the Limerick Challenge Week 24: Once Upon a Time.