//
you're reading...
Poetry Prompts

Monday Poetry Prompt: Tree

Posted by ⋅ ⋅ 38 Comments
Filed Under  ,

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.

Unknown's avatar

About Bartholomew Barker

Bartholomew Barker is an organizer of Living Poetry, a collection of poets in the Triangle region of North Carolina where he has hosted a monthly feedback workshop for more than decade. His first poetry collection, Wednesday Night Regular, written in and about strip clubs, was published in 2013. His second, Milkshakes and Chilidogs, a chapbook of food inspired poetry was served in 2017. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2021. Born and raised in Ohio, studied in Chicago, he worked in Connecticut for nearly twenty years before moving to Hillsborough where he lives and writes poetry.

Discussion

38 thoughts on “Monday Poetry Prompt: Tree”

  1. Cassa Bassa's avatar

    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

    Liked by 7 people

    Posted by Cassa Bassa | May 9, 2022, 8:47 AM
    Reply to this comment
  2. ts19page's avatar

    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.

    Liked by 5 people

    Posted by ts19page | May 9, 2022, 9:21 AM
    Reply to this comment
  3. Reply to this comment
  4. TonyA..........'s avatar

    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.

    Liked by 5 people

    Posted by TonyA.......... | May 9, 2022, 10:09 AM
    Reply to this comment
  5. Reply to this comment
  6. Reply to this comment
  7. Chris Clarke's avatar

    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

    Liked by 2 people

    Posted by Chris Clarke | May 12, 2022, 5:08 PM
    Reply to this comment
  8. JeanMarie's avatar

    A dusty shoe tree
    I own one pair of shoes
    Fashion, not my thing.

    Liked by 2 people

    Posted by JeanMarie | May 12, 2022, 10:23 PM
    Reply to this comment
  9. Second Act Blogger's avatar

    Here is my tanka. 31 syllables. i counted.

    Vrikshasana (Tree Pose)

    Liked by 1 person

    Posted by Second Act Blogger | May 13, 2022, 1:55 PM
    Reply to this comment

Leave a reply to Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris Cancel reply

Enter your email address to follow Living Poetry's blog and receive new posts by email.

Join 964 other subscribers

View Our Latest Poetry Posts