I planted this giant Water Oak as a 4 foot tall twig 25 years ago.
My backyard on a sunny Winter day last week.
Winter Trees
By Marion Lawless
The trees are all bare tonight,
their gangly limbs,
bony-fingered arrows
pointing to the ghostly full moon
shining luminously overhead
casting murky shadows
on the frozen ground.
Unearthly they seem---
like beings from another realm,
vulnerable and naked,
yet sure of who they are---
safe,
watched over
by the stars.
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"Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to git attention we do, except walk?" ~Alice Walker, The Color Purple, 1982
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Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
BY ROBERT FROST
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
3 comments:
I see you have lived in your home many years, to see your twig turn in to a mighty oak. I like the poem you wrote. When I put my hand upon a tree I feel a strong life force there. Remember when the trees marched to join in the battle in Lord of the Rings?
i think it is a good life, to plant a tree such as this! and write a poem about it!!!
as to the snow -- we've not as much as usual this winter and yet i am fresh in from shoveling it, feeling very much as though i am in the first day of the Turin Horse. have you seen it? ohmygoodness, Bela Tarr, my heart aches. (we'll finish watching it this evening, safe and sound inside, with a still-warm loaf of homemade whole wheat bread. i really have nothing to complain about.)
i miss the trees we planted and left behind. one in ohio, when our first was born. and then two at the house we sold when we were divorced. all three, apple trees.
I love your poem, Marion. And I was just reading the Frost poem the other day!
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