Just Like a Tree

One of the other attendees at the Writing Workshop at Schiff Nature Preserve last Saturday graciously agreed to let me post one of her creations.  She created this poem in a 20-minute writing session, and it just captured my heart and reflects how we both feel about our noble tree friends.

Visit Treesa's website and see her other artistic work and creations:  http://tjoycreations.com/


Just Like a Tree

Who do you think you are pretending to be so not like me, Silly One.
Are we not both fibrous sinew wrapped in myelin sheath

Don’t we both stand just a little bit taller
When the sun summons us to look up

Don’t we both say, “Ahh” when cool waters
After a long, hot summer’s day swirl around our rooted toes

Do you not smile back at me when my petaled face giggles at you
When I poke out of my frosted jack-in-the-box

Don’t we both cry for silence
When chaos dizzies us with mayhem

Don’t we both want to be covered and protected from our vulnerable nakedness
When winter’s heavy hand strips our mask from its lodged grasp

Do you not like to bend and sway
When the winds of Spirit whisper in your ear
Beckoning you for one last dance before the music slips back into memory

Do you like it when the bird leaves its squashy mess on you?
No, me neither
And yet haven’t we both found a way to use it for good?

Do you see that our green eyes are shimmering together
As we stand smitten in fixed gaze

Do you like my newest garb
It’s kind of growing on me

Yes, we are nearly identical, you and me
However, you have two legs and I but one

You run and jump but I stand here
Waiting for you to return

Hurry back, I miss you

For the Love of Trees...

I took a writing workshop with Kathy Kane, entitled Writing in the Woods.  If you have the opportunity to work with her, please DO!  www.kanecreativeconsulting.com.   In her workshop, we used this poem in one of the exercises.  I couldn't help but share it!


Lost
Stand still.  The trees ahead and the bushes beside you
Are not lost.  Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes.  Listen.  It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost.  Stand still.  The forest know
Where you are.  You must let it find you.

An old Native American elder story rendered into modern English by  David Wagoner, in The Heart Aroused - Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America by David Whyte