
This week let’s write a tree poem. Sure, there are already plenty of tree poems from Kilmer‘s to Frost‘s to Goethe‘s but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing left to write. Trees are simply metaphors with bark and leaves. Post your sapling (or even just an acorn) in the comments below.
Here is my tanka. 31 syllables. i counted.
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31 syllables read in 45 seconds passes the test for standing on one foot for the average 40 year-old, for older folks it’s a real accomplishment!. It was fun trying it with your poem, I think your poetry helped–TS
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Thank you! I feel more powerful already.
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A lovely tanka and thank you for teaching me a nice yoga pose.
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It is a good pose. Someday i hope to master it
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A dusty shoe tree
I own one pair of shoes
Fashion, not my thing.
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Excellent! There’s more than one kind of tree.
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Fragment
she reached out
her arms
dark and wrinkled
and held me close
her fingers
soft and ever baby-green
holding me close to her trunk
where once she nourished me
on milk of honeysuckle nectar
and wild rose
gently swaying
in a never-failing noctilucent breeze
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Tree love, recognizable and valued by this reader..also love the use of ‘noctilucent’!
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Great image and I love the use of “noctilucent”!
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Lovely!
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Thank you Bartholomew! 😊
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Since time immemorial
the young, human and arboreal
by root pushed, or race run,
seek their place in the sun.
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Communication from a Tree
Come; lay down your head on my brown roots,
cease the heavy stride, let anger dissipate.
The shroud about your form does not belong;
would leave, if you allow my shade to soothe,
the aromatic air transport -as my leaves
rustle and tap to the Green Man’s music.
What short and troubled lives you have.
What fantasies I hear you sing.
Man, you are so sad, so full of woe!
I’ve heard your feet pad against my earth
many-times before -and not once have I known
you understand the purpose of your Beings’ worth.
You are more like me than you will ever know.
Let every organ recalibrate and renew;
go naked underneath my Sun Star canopy.
Let not age concern you, as it does not me.
You are not the first biped to pass
me by, or spread the self about my bark
to drink the peace -yet I think you different
from most I’ve known; a link you have
that still might couple in the green
and undo that darkness common to your ties.
Come, lay down your head and let me share
the secret, that unburdens men and makes trees wise.
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Peaceful imagery and wisdom arises from this, and seems a perfect paean to tree love, so well done!
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Men and trees share more characters than I thought. Thank you!
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Love that short (and sweet) second stanza. Thanks for sharing!
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Thank you all for your comments -much appreciated!
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Mine is here: https://prolificpulse.blog/2022/05/09/we-grow-together/
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The strength from a tree shelter us from the harsh attack.
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Wow! A Shakespearean Sonnet. Impressive!
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Thank you
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The Tale Come Round
She wished to preserve it,
a chronicle to keep about life
as she knew it, a story
of the untrammeled mind,
How it earnestly unfolds itself,
the gilded pages,
turning invisibly
to continuance,
The black deed
that curved back the plot
toward the vacuous stretches
of flat space.
Then, unknown to itself,
life had come round again,
following
the arc of space-time,
Moving into the center
of the bloom, the pollen place
that gold-dusted
bee-visited, sweetness.
Consciousness, being fundamental,
is intrinsic, as the blue
in the wild flower
is blue.
She began to know her life
like the maple tree by the stream,
the tree with dead trunks, stark,
upward striving, sprouting new limbs.
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Beautiful ❤
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Thank you!
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I like how you pave the path to that maple tree by the stream.
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Thanks! S.
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Excellent, especially that final stanza.
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Thank you! -S.
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Tree and Paper
If only
you can see the future
You won’t get hung up
on wrapping your arms
around the memory
of your thriving youth
The old self you shed
pushing outward
to form calluses
telling the world
that you are wiser
by counting the rings
of your wrinkles
You never see the future
of your exhausted face
made into sheets of canvas
for beauty to take forms
pleasing to our eyes
and souls
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I love this so hard! If only… love it.
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Thanks Lisa, that made me happy! ☺️
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I like the circularity and resurgence in this, how youth becomes something of value even if different.
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Thanks for your comment, and I learned a new word ‘resurgence’, thank you kindly.
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You’re Welcome!
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Gorgeous! Especially love the wrapping arms around the memory of thriving youth. Great job!
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