January 22: Conversations with Trees

Tonight I participated in a poetry reading at the Curtis Public Library in Brunswick with five other poets and Leonard Meiselman, an artist who had filled the room with his paintings and sketches of trees. We each read pieces (written by ourselves and others) that related to trees. The diversity of voices amid the dynamic energy of the art made for an interesting program in which I was honored to take part.

My husband Paul composed this haiku in honor of our friend Gary Lawless, one of the other participating poets, who had coordinated the evening:

At tonight's reading

every man wore a grey beard--

a room full of Ents.

Posted with Blogsy

October 6: Inhale

Still green and leafy

the trees in my backyard

are holding their breath.

Posted with Blogsy

December 24: The day after

Every twig, every branch,
every tree, encased,
as if lovingly, with ice.

May 24: Continuing rain

A curtain of water makes more vivid the green tapestry of the spring trees. Clouds and mist soften the contours of the landscape, create a background of grey and white against which the trees shine even more brightly. A stand of beech trees, waving chartreuse leaves larger than hands, is almost psychedelic in the fog. Birds are hard to spot in this weather--who has the patience to stand long in the rain, vision obscured by water dripping on binoculars?--but still they sing. Dry inside, I listen to hear them over the rain.

Rain drips off the roof,
its rhythm punctuating
robin's late day song.

May 10: Greening

A couple of days of rain and mist, and the trees in our backyard have really greened up and leafed out.

Much-needed rain falls.
Yard becomes a leafy stage
through which one crow flies.

February 8: Creaking trees

Walking home from work in a moment of relative calm during today's snowstorm, I heard what I thought was a woodpecker tapping at a tree. I paused to listen more carefully and realized it was a tree creaking in the wind. 

Trees sway in storm winds,

tap out their messages.

Wonder what they're saying. 

Just thinking in broader terms of human conversation, on a more philosophical level, it made me realize that we can never really know if we're understanding what someone else is saying. And the farther we're removed from them by medium of communication--email, letter, text message, writing them a poem, passing along a verbal message through a third party--the more room there is for misinterpretation. Those are my deep thoughts from amid what's supposed to be a serious blizzard.