Tree Poems: Middle Years

I am again in bloom — even in Autumn — making tangled connections to those rooted around me — sharing what I have stored, from long summer’s sky and sun and rains, feeding forward — the dehydrins and the mycorrhizas — with fellow trees in need

for #writeout

Tree Poems: Early Days of the Oak

Slow stretching — my armor’s itching with wooden etchings — dark textures to show how much I grow — though every inch, to you, with your ticking clocks of keeping time, must seem interminable slow

for #writeout

Tree Poems: Sapling

While others, like me, little more than seed, brace for the blast of winter winds and midnight storms, I’ve rooted down, secure in soil, this place where I am born

for #writeout

Tree Poems: Seedling

Stuck on the tongue of the bird in flight, a feathered suitcase on the move in the night, I drop myself to dig myself in, cushioned and comforted in soil, basking by morning light

for #writeout

The cadence of trees beats a subtle relief

Roots in a rhythm out of sync with its leaves

Each song starts as seed, in silence, then achieves

something like wonder, if a listener wants to believe

for #writeout 2021

Under Ancient Blue - we walk these trails, footstep by footstep, trodden stories pressed down on pathways: a poem stuck inside this tree; a story buried under that stone; a phrase adrift on running water

Footstep by footstep, we walk these trails, alone and together, Under Ancient Blue

for #writeout inspired by https://youtu.be/_wRmNY5JkVk

Who was it who placed that rock upon the prone body and broken spirit of Giles Corey, three days of the world weighted down upon him, like Sisyphus with no mountain, as Salem wandered by, ears stretched for any mutterings of forgiveness that never came?

— for #writeout ghost stories (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giles_Corey)

Sometimes this river releases small secrets, broken shards of pottery and glass, worn smooth, cloudy by the constant embrace of eddies and currents, leaving us with more questions than answers as to who it was who came before us and where they have gone, since

• for #writeout

Black Iron Fence

Tridents and spears on the black iron fence

One mile one quarter, the perimeter of the black iron fence

Ten thousand, seven hundred distinctly-made pieces, the skeleton bones of the black iron fence

Cannon iron; collected, gathered, blacksmith-ed, forged, held, and hammered into the black iron fence

for #writeout and WMWP Writing Marathon

Such tender paths on this tender map

the seasons always seem to linger when we need them most

we pocket the leaf that maps the tree that maps the wood that maps the love

what once was seed now becomes journey

for #writeout