I have friends who are Quakers, friends who are Unitarian Universalists, friends who Dialogue in the Bohmian tradition, friends who are Mystics, friends who are Poets, and so many other friends who live lives of wisdom and wonder... this is my account of the meeting with these friends...

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Winter's Trees


sometimes, a post that I make in a forum or a blog, comes not from the "head"- is not born of intellect- but rather is from that "poetry-place" that we know so well... it may be written in the prose form, but it comes from the same place as the poem comes from, or any sort of creative act for that matter- music, a photo, a painting, a meal-well-prepared, a child-well-raised... the poet in me can meet and act in any of those life places...

here is something I wrote that arrived like that - its from late fall of a year ago- but some friends were talking about trees just recently, and that reminded me of this post, and so I pulled it out from the archives, and thought I might share it here too...



when prose becomes poetry...

when the telling becomes the asking...

when the teacher becomes the student...

when the context becomes the leaves of the fall... beautiful, and exuberant - but fall they must - for they are not the tree... the celebration of the story is a marvelous season of the tree, but only a short season... fall they must... free words are dying words - they are beautiful in their dying... going down in a blaze of color and windblown lightness...

winter is the trees reflecting time... free of the context... alone with life and death...

the questions that the tree asks in winter, are not the sorts of questions that are taken up by the leaves... they are bare questions... sparse - simple questions... the leaves no longer drawing up the sap and the energy... so the energy that is there, is all poured into that reflection... into those sparse questions... about life and death and treeness itself... the celebration has now quieted completely... it is time to face the bare reflections in the ice born mirror...

free of its concerns for reds and yellows and oranges and goldens and long gone greens... free of concern for the fruiting and nut-making - having given what it has to give to the squirrels and birds and humans below...

what did krishnamurti call this inquiry? ... "discontent", wasnt it?... "now is the winter of our discontent"... ha ha!

yes - I think this whole thing that we do here - is about freeing up the words in the sense of "meanings"... freeing meanings - is losing the context - in this natural, seasonal way... reflection I dont think goes away... it just no longer adheres... its not concerned with "figuring it out"... that is not what the "asking" is... this period of alone reflection is the healing - not just for the tree, but for the forest itself... so it asks about death, not because of some story that it has to tell - that is long since dropped off of its branches... it asks for the purpose of healing... the whole forest is asking this question, bare of its contexts... safe in what has been stored for later use, that is no longer of concern...

how interesting, to see just how wealthy the forest is, in winter time... if one really looks... its all stored deep, down, in roots and burrows, for later use... safe in that knowledge, look at what it is able to reflect upon - leafless - fruitless... just bare reflection - on treeness... on forest, foresting... on life and death... in the quiet of winter...


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