Pulp

Oh bare soul

                    Ink stains

On white sheets

                 hinting impressions of what

came before

                    Without a dark mark made

Leaving no footprints or

                             creases and whatnot

Simply sinking in

                            a breeze shuffles

across the surfaces, 

                                      Lost in the sheaf

reams of lives, 

trembling forests,

                                     all are ashes too...

In the tree outside

the bedroom window

                                     Atop the tallest branch

A mockingbird gives an Aria

Jumping up in bursts, 

Flapping,

                Landing, bleating again

Relentlessly

                   it seems to me

that if a free spirit were

truly so

                     No one would ever know

The full story of a tree...

does one begin with roots-

                                 the buried seeds

nay, so I draw 

a delicate leaf

                                   Hanging mid-air

and am fixated

                        noticing the fallen

Bark below, scratches, and scars

That healed long before

                                       Now sloughed off

and suddenly I erupt 

                        laugh aloud

Along the same avian pitch

                                    Mocking my own

disbelief in the resilience

of composition

                           finding forms

of Liberty.

Erasing all I have done

In the air, irrigated charcoal

           a trace, a gentle summer 

Rain is coming

           so I jump up and go for a run

In the nearby woods

Blood pumping

                       through limbs

Pounding the soft earth

                      I carve a secret Path

instead 

of writing this poem.

Image Title: Bob; the story of our mocking-bird

Year: 1899 (1890s)

Authors: Lanier, Sidney, 1842-1881; Lanier, Charles Day. (from old catalog); Dugmore, Arthur Radclyffe, 1870- (from old catalog) illus

Publisher: New York, C. Scribner's sons

Contributing Library: The Library of Congress

Credit via Wikimdia Commons in Public Domain

Mountain Men

Listen,
It said to
Stop & Breathe
Forest
For the Trees
are lain out like a lumpy quilt
pinned to dry under fiery skies
of patchwork orange,
a citrus of sepia
trimmed in sheeny emerald
sat in
wonder when a wind yawned
wide, stretching cool brisk air
over my shoulders
gently stirring the quiet giant
in his bed of canopies
where he lies leisurely
tickling the sky
who cries in merry laughter
some times
while nobody's watching
He must have just turned over
and fallen back
in the deep
thickets, amongst
the dark womb roots
settling down
lulled by
a song
Foresting.





Image titled 'Orange Forest' [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

We Sea Trees

Caressing her steam from the trunk

Hugging her clouds from her crown

The heart blood is trapped in sap

Awash in the beams, lasers of light
through veins of amber rings

Slice the pillared shadows

Spraying musk that bursts
bark rust forth,
settling for dew
likewise, hanging on
to every loose end.

She breathes you in

as you pass

A sapling too slight

to care whose airs

of mutual aqueous

evanescence is about them

re-membered reaching
and thirsting for the light
to rein down atop our crowns.

Photo of Redwoods By NPS Photo [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Seeing the forest for the fantasy

I have watched like an arrested witness,
                                                   I have observed, from inside the bubble,
silenced from interruptions,
                                                   the echoes of my thoughts reverberating,
muffled and bouncing, hollow all around me.

A slip, a fall, down a tumultuous trail that unwinds,
                                                  sucked through a straw of destiny's tube.
If you can conceive it-
                                                  you should believe in burst bubbles,
suspended amid weightless fantasy
                                                  land, ushered by passing spires,
reality-threatening a poke
                                                 around the rocky fables.
Wishes evaporate into splashes,
                                                  hope heavy plummets,
hydrogen bound heavy,
                                                 drowning in carbonic dead wait-
Oh, if you could see the view-
                                                  if you only knew...
Up the boughed birch the searcher barks,
                                                 mocking today while dangled legs,
pins pricking shins begins,

                                                 Dreams fall as rain in bulging bursts
drop-
lets,
where mystic wishes, with thin traces leave wisps and wishes,
                                                  elements evaporating before my eyes,
rolling on and back.
                                                  Walking on wine,
Turning truths into tales,

                                                 Deep, in the fabled forests of immaculate youth.

Composed 6/7/15.
Image By Ida Rentoul Outhwaite (From: 'The Enchanted Forest', 1921) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. Waterfall Fairy, from 'The Enchanted Forest', 1921. 

Follow the Trail

The long

   and wind-

ing road where

  a river runs

    through this Place.

      My nest-my shelter…

        A bough heavy with its

         Burden throwing weight

           under -fractured –arms-bends

          splitting branches and hairs.

         Shedding, peeling, bleeding

        New growth smooth raw

      and glowing in vibrant appearance

     of new buried in the piles, behind the

    Brook, between the pulpy sheets in the

    Pillared fortress of my dark wood. Followed

   by History, taunted under timber, mossy muffled

  movements like the pumas pads, stalking, following

 His instinct upwind of fragile deer quaking in the breeze.

Led innocently but not blind by the familial scent which

Rushes past as white noise……………

The rivers running away in daily rush,

  the commute of clear water swelling

   and surging. Overflows with dripping

    anticipation, a communion-yet lingering

      all ways, touching baptismal branches,

       alone with the alchemy

        tossed in the leafy mix, where lights

         refraction concentrates and showers,

          beaming and bemoaning,

           the straightforward path

             Toward the new season,

              rooted in reason,

               salt over the shoulder,

                tears condense.

                 No turning back!

                  Abandon All Pride!

                    Mists obscure all distinction

                     of form-that is confidence-

                      The kiss of order, standing up 

                       to reason gushing with fortitude

                         in the flow of perspiring possibility.

                          Down long halls lined in

                           mirrored repetition,  rhetorical echoes

                            only bounce; bouncing rhetoric in repetition

                              mirroring echoes  the eagle’s fading scream,

                               A crier over town, sad jays bicker greedily 

                                gathering, stealing and mocking in their way 

                                    out of the thicket of things. Wandering wearily,

                                      coming to corners where speckled rocks

                                          from brooks and granites gain

                                            cowering recluse, a charging cavalier

                                               out of the mist. The berth anew, bewildered

                                                  by this liquid leariness.

                                                     Not a place to sea the source etched

                                                      in deep groves. Matters not of maps;

                                                        forecasted, charted,  re-routing, and

                                                          never doubting.

                                                            Blind faith, la selva obscura,

                                                             branches of beliefs stretching,

                                                               growing isms opening buds,

                                                                revealing tips of truth.

                                                                  From: The Past

                                                                    To: The Present

                                                                     A sacrificial lamb

                                                                      sheared of

                                                                        symbolic strength

                                                                          covering paths of tortuous trails         

                                                                           dead ends trap and pray

                                                                            begging of another way

                                                                              boughs for none bending astray

                                                                               beckoning behind knotty burl

                                                                                snarled in growing, tread softly on shed

                                                                                  skin exposing the elements

                                                                                   Aware of wind, heightened

                                                                                    yet heedless of escape, leave in fear

                                                                                     bursting bold and brazen

                                                                                       The eternal flame

                                                                                         Embers, never forgetting

                                                                                          pulsing vein, rhythmic, infinite

                                                                                            bleeding, gushing forth,

                                                                                              in the current forward motion

                                                                                                breathing the days away

                                                                                                  In the middle of the grove

                                                                                                    downstream and deeper

                                                                                                     drowning in the thick
                                                                                                        Redwood Forest

"There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more." -Lord Byron

Feature image (1st) by Ilya Repin (1844-1930) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Second image, Redwood Forest "Fall Creek"

If I was there (as pictured)

You

can see

The Forest

                                                                                                                        Over there-

Hills bent like knees, folded and prickled with trees, textured tones of green shadowed by their own darkness unseen. Lush in mossy folds of exploding ripe oxygen with spores sparking their sperm of wild plumage fans its layered feathers blurred in flight, this sight you can see-

Wherein,

          fawn and stag trample broken arms under hoof…a trail, a scent, a nymph of notion. (Not I)

                                                                                    Smoke of an obscured roof floats billowing

a periwinkle blanket of Big open skies under Venus’ belt, who tucks in the sprawling landscape-or tries. Soaring in sacred circles on the crown of canopy raptors released, flying cage free.

Blurs of sweeping leaves, fingertips brushing the panoramic pastels, strokes of infinite-wait-

What-

Was

That sound-                                                                                                 Did you hear?

Just a raccoon, bat, owl, opossum, puma or deer…falling down-playing dead, maybe.

Things echo in cathedrals.

Sounds are carried, strung together in symbols, the pin drops but the sewers eyes are sewn shut.

Fears flourishing outlined with dread.

Can you see? Inside, where the trees hide and words disappear-I cannot see, I was not here.

Image by Anna Ramsburg, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via Wikimedia Commons, (public domain).

Bonsai Sequoia

'Foghorn Leghorn' approximately 10 years old, 2 feet tall

A proud hopeful twig,

A mighty little sprig,

reaches, stretches, grasping for sky-light,

drinking the coastal fog and dew from overnight.

Wise wee wooded sapling,

on your branches birds will sing,

and you will carry their tune,

on timber and echoes-yet not so soon.

Longevity like oozes sap, as the blood in ones vein;

through aortic roots, a statuesque feign-

except for the unmistakable air,

climbing higher than one could dare.

Rings notching decades like days,

breathless moments and canopy sways,

fall like whispers, awe around your burly base,

bursting to the Heavens, you continue to race.

Already you have your bark

eager and preparing to make your mark.

You have been called “Giants among Men”

forests and wilderness from way back when…

Thousands of years, all that you've seen,

optimistically each year peeling virgin green.

A giant sequoia, a prehistoric tree,

Sempre virens, stoically notching eternity.

One day little tree, you will go in the ground,

in a place I’ll make sure is safe and sound.

But for now-

I wish I could say how,

I want you to get really BIG-

and show you are no longer a twig!

I do love watching you grow, forgetting how slow;

and despite the fact that I will never really know,

get to breathe your nectar air-or live to see,

just how big you'll really be.

Photo By Ngresonance at en.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons