The following poems were written after making a decision to move into an apartment for the winter, and then struggling to understand what went wrong. Instead of community I met with hostility, and as we know one breeds the other, and for a time I got caught by my shadow too.
Called home out of necessity and need, the longer I stayed the harder it was to leave even when 16 feet of snow crashed down from the roof blocking the entire front of my house. ‘The Peace of the Wild Things’ is in my blood and as hard as I try, I can’t seem to make an adjustment to living in a town where crows and men rule, and birdsong is absent though migration is under way.
The forest is bursting with berries, blue lily beads are just one of a multitude of seeds…Astonishing pearl bells adorn mounds of shining wintergreen that shimmer across the forest floor. Soon those berries will blush, bead up, cry scarlet. Three leaved trillium wear peaked red caps. Deep orange bunchberry clusters surprise the unwary -who is expecting this bountiful feast on a woodland floor? Partridgeberry beads are lime green except for those from last year. Soon too these will be adorned in flaming berries that will last all winter… I’m waiting for the cucumber plants to show their colors. Lemon lime whirls catch the slightest breeze. Cattails, and milkweed pods are sending puffs of cotton on the wings of the slightest breeze. Bull frogs call from the rushes; fish intent on the next meal, break the surface of the beaver pond creating a ripple that spreads across the still waters circles upon circles widening into blue glass. Blue headed vireos, red eyed vireos and the hermit thrush sing from green bowers hidden from sight. Hemlock cones have dropped their black microscopic eyes under each parent carrying the knowledge that kin will look after their own. Acorns are dropping a bit too early; their caps still green, but some creature will have a feast, or the microbes will devour these seeds enriching the soil for next year’s sprouting.
Seeding up…. Thousands of years ago women began gathering forest bounty – always asking for permission they took only what they needed. That the forest will return the favor is a given – gratitude the exchange – Seed Saving is an ancient practice that women originally learned from dreams, animals, and the trees that were their neighbors. At that time all were kin….
This year I collect hemlock seeds, the beaked hazelnuts that edge the forest are ripening – almost ready to split…I rattle wild columbine spires releasing the seeds, collect salmon rose hips for a nourishing tea… scatter wild poppy seeds. I am still waiting for elderberry to grace the ditches with deep purple berries. The birds and I keep an eye on ripening clusters and share the bounty between us.
My cultivated garden takes care of itself these days…. Planting vegetables gives me no pleasure – too many years of work, giving to others – too much work that restricted my freedom to come and go. The forest floor is medicine now. Appreciation of every gift grieved or given never goes unnoticed…but it is the joy of watching each plant offer its prayer for the future that keeps me returning … home.
I’ve been told that most children in the United States learn to write haiku in third grade. At the very least they learn that haiku is a traditional poetic art form using seventeen syllables divided into lines of 5 – 7 – 5. The idea is to capture a moment in time. The famous Japanese poet/priest, Issa (1763-1828), focused on creating haiku using his love for nature in the process.
I did not grow up in the American school system, so it wasn’t until I took an undergraduate Zen Buddhism course that I learned to appreciate and have fun with creating this particular kind of poetry.
In the following haiku, I try to capture the moment I experienced the natural scene in front of me. Taking a photograph and then writing an accompanying haiku can be a meditative exercise. I keep striving to make that exercise a daily happening.
Ominous dark clouds Follow me around the lake Pushed by a brisk wind
Waxing moon pierces fringed Hemlocks Starbursts blink in and out Owls converse from Needled Crowns bathed in Air and Light. Refuge Tree soothed by Familiar calls sighs deeply, soaking In the Night.
Refuge incarnates as Aphrodite…
In the forest I slip into a lime green skin with the help of one hemlock, under whose feathery wings this transformation takes place. I breathe her sweet scent through my supple membrane. Standing beneath Refuge, whose roots claw the edge of a steep slope that bows to the river, I can barely see the crown of the tree, maybe 150 feet in the air. This hemlock towers over the rest. Moss and lichen adorn her limbs and the tree’s deeply ribbed reddish brown bark is an invitation to touch that I can never resist. Scrambling down the slope with care I lean against the tree and listen, always hoping… sometimes I think I hear a low hum if the wind is still. Perhaps I’m imagining.
To spend time in nature and deeply connect with Her is to allow enough time for Her surprising wisdom and dreamlike insights to open up for me. I call this “Plein Air Poetry.” It’s a joy to wait in nature and see who connects with me on any given day.
These poems come with the gratitude of very early Spring when Her first shoots and flowers, such as the weeping cherry which birds have planted all over my yard, begin to appear like mysterious veils over winter’s greyness.
Deb Pollard Greening
Greening April 6, 2022
Suddenly I awaken, early April, and a diaphanous green veil has draped over the weeping cherries, the first to bloom with delicate, drooping grace.
I longed to re-visit
the desert – my first
journey left me
with a longing for
wide open spaces,
a blue sky dome,
a bowl of stars at night,
so to return 25 years later
was to complete
an unfinished story.
Now I could live among
the stately rock
stark white columns,
conical reptilian hills,
pink and purple sands,
ragged weeds,
Cactus People,
thorns and stickers,
delicate yellow flowers,
under a moon that rarely slept?
Some nights I missed the dark.
I always missed the Bear
I dismissed the longings
in my body,
Things were different here.
Maybe I could escape
the grief of dying trees,
stripped mountains,
a shrinking wilderness
too many gunmen
the loss of dreams?
That first November
I heard a haunting –
Crane calls
as they touched
down at nightfall.
My bones sang.
How I longed
to meet the bird
whose voice
sent lightening chills
through every nerve.
My walk to the river is a joyful entrance into the eternal Now. The water flowing, crushed fresh mint, trilling bird song desert air so sweet my body vibrates drumming with all that is…
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