The Littlest Balsam by Sara Wright

Five years ago
I dug a seedling
in protest
ki’s deep green
needles
slender trunk
and roots
yielded
to sweet
spring earth
with prayers.

I believed.

One winter night
I will celebrate
your life
the lives of
thousands
with a
candlelit
spiral
of tiny white lights.

Tonight
white flames
adorn you
old longings
and heartbreak
we share the same
root
stilled by
simple beauty
a single
reflection
of Love.

Through
you I honor
all the rest
Greening all year
long.

 I mourn
the multitudes

balsams standing
like footless soldiers
cut away from  earth
dying
to celebrate
a holiday
poisoned
by disbelief
consumption
and doing
secular
delusion.

 When I
wrapped you
in white stars
I could
hardly wait
until
dusk
turned
midnight blue
shrouded
round
moon
cottony clouds
scudding across
the skies
Great Bear
hung
over your head
sky jewels
and stories
celebrating
your coming
of age

Oh fragrant
balsam
through
you I honor
All Evergreens
for those
who can’t feel

May beneficent
winds and powdery
winter snows
wrap your needles
and branches
gently, securely
root tips sparkling
Sleep soundly
In Peace.

Ancient Mother
Father of
All Breath
Gifter of Life
be with us
let your scents
surround us
your roots
sustain us…

I beg you
in your Great Mercy
and everlasting patience
bathe us
in acceptance,
and
Natural Grace.

Working notes:

This year I have been living in a very dark place. As usual I am protesting what is happening with the holidays that begin with thanksgiving turkeys and the mindless murder of more trees. This holiday extends until after the first of the year when the consumer obsession that dominates our culture finally flattens out. That great maw feels like it’s swallowing me whole despite my attempts to remind myself that I was once part of this story having been brought up as a westerner.

I make it a yearly practice not to buy anything during a season that is dominated by collective greed and lack of awareness when people and animals and trees and fungi are suffering throughout the world. Instead I choose to offer my experiences…

But at the same time, I am exhausted. Tired of political murders and ecocide. Tired of feeling that protesting anything doesn’t matter, though I am compelled to continue on. Tired of reminding myself that I need to be grateful.

 Unlike millions of others, I have enough heat, some water, food, a most loving canine companion, and a warm cabin to live in at the edge of a frozen stream and small forest fragment. I know I need to be grateful, but I have not been able to FEEL it, and this lack of feeling upsets me most of all.

Ten days ago, I had a dream in which I finally kill a ‘head’ that only becomes human after its death.

Last week on thanksgiving I fed all my wild turkeys, taking great pleasure from their deep appreciation which they expressed through continuous twittering.

 Last night for the first time I decorated and lit a small balsam tree that I had planted outside my east window under a glorious white moon that slipped in and out of the trees.  After thawing frozen fingers and sitting by the fire I gazed out at the little tree and felt a spark of joy enter me. I remember imagining this little balsam being lit to celebrate all living trees…

What happened? Whenever I am trying to untangle a mystery, I turn to words. The poem that emerged helped me remember who I am – a person who feels deeply – a person who finds herself living in a culture that is beyond her comprehension – a person who understands that it is up to me to create meaning despite what is happening , meaning that includes myself and extends to the rest of nature.

I celebrate the Great Round, and my ceremonies mark these transitions, but this year I have been too depressed to engage. When this happens, I pray a lot to the trees as I walk expressing my hopelessness and begging for reprieve. Two months of silence.

 When I lit that tree a spark flew through the window – a mystical bird reconnecting me on a feeling level to what this tree lighting means to me.

 I am celebrating the Tree of Life as she manifests as an evergreen, and by extension my return to the roots that have sustained me throughout my life. This morning I wept as I peered out the window onto monochromatic grays, and a half frozen brook, trees burdened by heavy snow (once considered too early in the season) by extending my love to all trees. Relief was palpable. That’s when I understood that my simple gesture of planting and tending to one small balsam for five years and then lighting her helped restore my broken relationship to all trees.

To be in touch with any feeling besides rage and hopelessness is to experience profound relief.

 Now perhaps I can light my indoor Norfolk  pine, create my solstice wreath, celebrate the solstice fire, give thanks, and enter Winter’s Light.