Beautiful tribute to trees and to weathered wisdom and silences.
I, too, am fascinated about trees. My first attempt at a poem here in Steemit, was from a tree's perspective. It was a wonderful exercise to try to replicate the voice of an ancient tree that has witnessed generation come and go, individual lives flourish and wither, and its own vision change as it grew.
Trees have been humanized in many myths and legends (some popular TV shows have some of those wise talking trees featured as important characters). We associate their longevity with wisdom because we assume that only time can make us wise. Wisdom and growth come at a price and we also assume that a wise soul carries scars. Trees (even those whose trunks are smooth) are the personification of a scared life.
Your trees speak without words. Their branches’ desperate reaching and twisting seem to speak of self-inflicted punishment. If reaching for illumination is the source of those scars, then we can understand why it is worth the while.
Trees may be the best recorders of time, since not only do they show it in their barks, but also in their trunks once they are cut down. We can tell the age of a tree by the wood growth rings. Where are our rings?
These lines and the image of the dead tree piled up in front of living ones left quite an impression.
What invisible dances do you do
—or silent chants intone—
over long centuries to celebrate
the procession of elegant equinoxes
and mourn your wizened dead?
My mother is one of those who not only think plants are alive and feel just like us. She actually talks to them. She begs the rose to bloom, she asks oregano permission to cut a branch, and she gives the soursop words of encouragement when she struggles to give healthy fruits. So, these lines really make the trees come alive and look as intriguing and fascinating as they can be venerable.
The anguish of a parent who tries to protect their children is magnified before the prospect of silence and immobility. How would we do if we wanted to protect our children but we were fixed and muted? What major evolution had to take place to develop forms of communication that circumvent those limitations?
Anyone who has been lost in a forest knows that trees do have ways of guiding or misguiding (if we can’t understand their language). Like children, and animals, trees have their ways of elating, warning, and auguring. We just need to be observant.