Diving Deeper

The Solace of Trees (7 poems by Sulis)

These seven poems span a six-year period of my life living here in the Missouri Ozarks, when I have found comfort and protection in trees and, on two occasions, felt called to comfort and protect them also.  The first two poems (Honey Locust and Crying with Trees) were written when I lived in a 'holler' beside a spring-fed creek. 

The next five (Ice Storm, Windy Forest, Battled at Wounded Tree, Walking Toward the Light, and Leaf Fall) were written in another place of healing that I now like to call the Wood Between the Worlds after C.S. Lewis.  Another recent poem honoring trees can be found here: Heartwood.

Known otherwise as Greenwood, the place where I now live is a 1000-acre forested land trust that came to be almost 30 years ago when it was under threat of clear-cutting.  This year a devastating storm came through (see Heartwood) and we are still in the process of seeing what can be done to help the forest recover.

(All images copyright Sara Firman.)

Honey locust (by Sara Firman)

Are you really dead?
Podless and thornless
Wombless and toothless
Once honeyed
Still wreathed
Crucifixion
Compassion
Your two arms reaching
Heavenward
She's buried beneath you

Are you really dead?
Skin wrinkled in ridges
Leafless and twigless
Spine collapsing
Still withstanding
Tempests
Tolerant
Your steady presence
Grounded
Her spirit climbs you

Are you really dead?
Silent but expressive
Lifeless and deathless
Her cry heard
Your cry answered
Trumpeted
Poisoned
Your two spirits
Connecting
Not dead but everlasting

Crying with Trees (by Sara Firman)

Inside the screened canopy
My own tears falling
As I speak aloud
The story
Alone

Alone that is until I notice
How the trees are crying
Long drops of tears
Tracing
My pain

Morning's mist enshrouding
Aeons of other's grieving
Now collecting mine
In dew
In rain

Water was ever my salvation
I dreamt of birthing a child
Into a deep blue pool
Glistening
With love

How could the one dear place
That made me sing with joy
Be witness to this
Death
Repeating

I thank the trees for crying
And the creek for flowing
Moving my grief
Gathering
Dispersing

One day there will be forgiveness

Ice storm (by Sara Firman)

Trees bowed down
with ice and tears
brittle as spun glass.

My heart cracked.

Fallen branches cut
the lines of power
for long still hours.

My heart cracked.

For years I was
holding memory
in frozen isolation.

My heart cracked.

My foot falls echo
in a bright dream
of fear and awe.

My heart cracked.

If the trees live on
then so must I
shattered or not.

Windy forest (by Sara Firman)

Like a ship at sea
in this windy forest
I heave my life up
to the top branches
and roll and soar
with change so vast
it shakes the shadows
leaving only shot light

Urged on I fly fast
and frantic my hair
thick as water runs
like lathered time after
me and the sun sings a
symphony of raw beauty
and power and love
festooned in eternity

Battle at wounded tree (by Sara Firman)

In mute distress,
did the forest lay for me
its bait of wild persimmons:
wrinkled, puckered in sweetness
after the first frost?

Not like the frost of false words
curled dry and inflammatory
as leaves, and leaving
an uncured after-taste
on my lips.

He lied. Instinctively
I set my own trap
like a huntress, like Artemis:
offered a little sweetness
before the fall.

If the backs of his hands
were skinned
or his face made raw
like the trees' hurt hides
Would he feel their pain?

Would he want to stand them up
after they had fallen?
Is taking their hearts,
their stalwart strength,
any kind of victory?

Ride away on your metallic steed
while I gather the fruit
that falls into my hands
so that we can eat cake
and plant seeds.

Mourn the fallen,
the gentle warriors,
who left us unharmed;
pay homage now,
do not reap or rape.

Walking towards the light (by Sara Firman)

I woke surrounded by trees
and when I told him he said
'So we might as well surrender'.

That day I laughed.
But most days a deep sadness.

My roots feel as shallow
as rock ridden as those trees' roots;
my body as scarred and bent.

We ended in the east.
I was walking towards a light.

A soft light cast from a stone
entrance to a sacred place
where I am headed.

I thought of Guinevere
always looking in on what she had lost.

It drove her sad then mad
and she ended her days
in a stone chapel.

Perhaps she found her child there
in a box of light.

It's not what I wanted either.

Leaf fall (by Sara Firman)

As if you matter
any more than this leaf
floating down from some high branch
catching an uplift and then drift
but inexorably downward
in a long, slow sweep
even so, graceful
to land among many
layer upon layer of leaves
so that after a while
I can't see where you landed
and your fear of being
singled out for anything
right or wrong
is laid to rest.

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Life in an Ozark forest: water to trees

A few years after I first moved to the Ozarks in 2003, I wrote this to a friend:

My neighbor, who makes his living from logging, has just 'devastated' an area nearby and across from our favorite spring.  I had decided not to plant trees next year (each year I've ordered just a few more and a few more too much it seemed).  But then someone lent me Jean Giono's beautiful fable with woodcuts, The Man Who Planted Trees, and I realized that I can compensate for that particular patch of logging by planting up our bottom-land meadow.  The riparian corridor for much of our creek has been slowly eroded so that's another good reason to restore it where I can.  I'll need to research what  indigenous species would be good to put there.  I love the native pawpaw and they love those moist spots. 

Creativity: Fire + Water

'From the alchemy of fire and water below to the divine light entering from above, the figure in this card is literally 'possessed by' the creative force. Really, the experience of creativity is an entry into the mysterious. Technique, expertise and knowledge are just tools; the key is to abandon oneself to the energy that fuels the birth of all things.

'This energy has no form or structure, yet all the forms and structures come out of it. It makes no difference what particular form your creativity takes - it can be painting or singing,  planting a garden or making a meal. The important thing is to be open to what wants to be expressed through you. Remember that we don't possess our creations; they do not belong to us.

'True creativity arises from a union with the divine, with the mystical and the unknowable. Then it is both a joy for the creator and a blessing to others.'

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From the Osho Zen Tarot, this interpretation of the Major Arcana Tarot card 'Empress' appeals to me in my ongoing search for a good way to combine these two elements - Fire + Water = Creativity.

The card came up  this week when I tried the online reading sample that you'll find here (if you feel the need for some transcendental support also).  Share if you like!

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Soul Wings (two poems by Sulis)

 

 

These two poems were written as I struggled with a frightening situation, and my own practiced denial in dealing with it.  I kept it hidden as much as possible and, through my poems, managed to escape on the wings of birds.  Though not for long.
 
The bluebird is Missouri's State bird.  It is precious to me also because, soon after I moved to the Ozarks, my godfather ('uncle bull') sent me a watercolor he had made of one.  The morning I received news that he had died in spring 2008, a bluebird came to visit me in my new forest home.

Birds can be messengers for us when they come in dream-life or in day-life.  I have experienced both.  Now I am learning to listen to them more carefully. The day I decided to post these, a Cooper's hawk perched very close to where I was working in the forest clearing logs.  He gave me courage.

Bluebird

The morning after
He threatened to kill me
There was a blue bird
He couldn't hear it at first

But I heard it falling
A long metallic scream as it
Slipped downwards
I knew no way to save her

All day she tried
Trapped in the stove pipe
Attracted to ashes
Lost  in a well of darkness

Fire burns in him
And birds have fallen before
Nothing he intended
Yearning for that brightness

All day I listened
To her pain sounding like mine
Then my cat saw her
Silent behind the glass darkly

Somehow she had
Slipped through a tiny crack
An impossible feat
She did it or the gods did it

I reached in for her
Took her gently to the door
Not black but blue
She flew out over the water

Later I understood
That she was my soul-wings
Blue bird of the air
Bringing life to fire's flame

Blue cool and free
She was an illusion of water
Flowing upwards
And he had mistaken her

For a safe passage
Channeling smoke to the sky
Not understanding
That she was born in the wind 

 

 

 

 

  Hagalaz

 
A full moon shone
on new snow
the morning after
Hagalaz
white and cold
as prayer ties;
the air sharp
as sage smoke
dressed in the robes
of renunciation.

He said I looked
blank as death
I told him I was
just afraid;
but his fear
was much greater
bamboo cracked
over bamboo
shards scattered
like paper dreams.

 

After a while
he stopped wanting
to kill himself
and I could sleep;
though my bed
called in lightening
and the moon was
smothered
caught in the web
of Nauthiz.

Now the pure
peace of Wunjo
heaven's breath
glows on the water;
I could hold up
my closed hand
and release the dove
in my chest
let her fly out of
the shadows of winter.