There is little to tell them apart
the old white logs
broken here at the mouth
of this small ocean creek
Mighty logs
washed down perhaps
from distant hills
distant worlds
These were trees once
tall as the changeling sky
filled to the shimmer with green
and all the shades of life
Their stories are lost
swept down far away rivers
set adrift on emptiness and cast
here on this wedge of beach
Truly they are ghosts
pale as sun-bleached bone
haunting back to the soils back
to storied waves of dream
In a list
Thoughts, Feelings, Interpretations, Experience:
Comments
1 - 22 of 22
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excellent
These were trees once
tall as the changeling sky
filled to the shimmer with green
and all the shades of life
Their stories are lost
swept down far away rivers
set adrift on emptiness and cast
here on this wedge of beach
love your choice or words and imagery.this is too good a read.Pls visit my poetrya nd offer some comments.
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Glad you liked.
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remembrances of life that once stood tall in the air.....spread their arms wide just to touch as fas as they could... took the time to clean the air for those around them... only to find themselves as husks thrown away in time.
well done my friend...well done!
Bill
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Vestiges, if anything. The memory I'd say is lost, or at least returned to the consciousness of earth.
Glad you enjoyed Bill. Thanks for checking in!
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good
wow nice pome the leaves are fallen i live for that line nice work you have out
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Thanks. Glad you enjoyed.
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WOW, the death and birth of nature. Beautiful desriptions and imagery. Very sad though that this poem seems to be coming to pass. You bring hope to conservation. Beautiful.
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Well, in time even the earth will be a faded old rock wasting on the backwater shores of a distant nebula.
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Details sharp as a well focused photograph,
Flows smoothly, each word drifts on a gentle current of observation to the next inevitable word. Images formed in eddies of poetic description ; "sky fill to the shimmer with green and all the shades of life", then "Shades of life" as a set up for "Truly they are ghosts" is brilliant. The tone seems mournful of death yet appreciative the philosophical and biological necessity to create a different, contrasting beauty as hinted at in the title. Return the Favor?
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You make pretty good observations yourself! Glad you enjoyed this, April, and I enjoyed your thoughts.
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A very thoughtful poem on nature. "Changeling sky" beautiful imagery there. I am a nature lover and this piece just speaks out to me. "Truly they are ghosts
pale as sun-bleached bone
haunting back to the soils back
to storied waves of dream"
Great stanza...my favorite. Great read. ~mandie~ -
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Aye! This was one of the poems I drafted in my little black composition book while out backpacking on the Lost Coast Trail here in Northern California. The place, and I'm sure if you look you could fine photos, is called "Jackass Creek", in the Sinkyone Wilderness State Park.
Glad you enjoyed.
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A nice pem on nature, truly nostalgic..keep that pen flowing dear friend
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Nostalgic? I'm curious how you sensed nostalgia in this write, if you'd be willing to share.
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I've known many fallen trees... I've watched some die by blight, other's of age and some were felled by my own hand. And I have been saddened on occaision.
Still, what's the value we place on life? What's so special about it....? Every 2 by 4 we saw and nail was alive once. Every sheet of plywood was a shady glen. Fact is my dinner was born, fought every day for survival, dreamed perhaps, swam the depths of the ocean and was swept along in the current as recently as last week (hopefully). So whats so special about life or so tragic about death? I suppose the answer is in the mirror, because we are, or were for a time, alive and we will be dead soon and that seems tragic. Well tragic at least in that we see our fate in metaphore and tragic for others who may chose to morn us, more universally tragic if no one even bothers.
Can't say I have more than this observation to contribute... It would be nice to have some sort of answer, but sometimes half the problem is knowing the question.
Not sure about this line... "haunting back to the soils back" Not bad, just a little weak for the penultimate stanza of such a good poem.
Otherwise the poem is truly artful.
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With all the fires zipping about through Northern California, I may have my own share of fallen trees to know. Some of my trees, I'm to understand, may be burning for the next several months--these are big trees.
I chose "haunting back to the soil" to reflect the nature of returning back to the dreaming, or if you prefer a more Eastern flavor, the Dao.
I tried to bring out a sense of reflection on the nature of human attachment and sentimentality in this poem, while illustrating the complete lack of attachment shown by trees to their states. Perhaps they have attachments, in their own way. I asked a Chan friend of mine once, "What causes a tree to manifest at all, if they're so at peace?" And his answer surprised me, "They're driven... to recreate themselves." Strong emphasis on "driven", as he shook his hand at the word. We walked among the old growth redwoods of the Montgomery Woods (now inside one of the fire perimeters) at the time. I looked up and saw these great peaceful beings with new eyes, and sensed the quiet urgency with which they went about their task of self-recreation.
If it's here, be it ghost, angel, insect, cloud, or tree, it's driven to accomplish something, it's driven to manifest itself. And for all that drive, as this poem attempted to convey--albeit subtly--each thing is destined to fade back into dreaming, from whence it will remanifest as something else.
My goal is, when I wash back along the beach to the dreaming, that I'll have established a blue-print by which I'd remanifest, one step closer to grasping the nature of it all.
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I keep reading this and thinking "Yes. That's right" though it is a sight I have never seen or experienced and, in my own land, one I am unlikely to see.
Your description is simple, sparse but telling and your thoughts clear even when I would demur over some of the vocabulary.
Excellent.
Jim
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My favorite image was "changeling sky". Great product. Don't change a thing.
I read an article about these fossilized tree stumps that were uncovered on the NW coast of America. If that is what this is about-- "ghost trees"--, then it is a fantastic splash of representation.
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A good write. This is thought provoking with some great imagery. I especially like "storied waves of dream" and "filled to the shimmer". Why "changeling" sky? That's really my only question. The rest of the poem is pretty much perfect, though. Good job.
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Ah, because it is ever changing. It constantly changes form; sometimes blue day, other times starry night; sometimes full of lightning and wind, other times scattered clouds rimmed silver by the full moon--and so on. "changeling sky"
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Beautiful...
"These were trees once
tall as the changeling sky
filled to the shimmer with green
and all the shades of life"
I adore this.... 'and all the shades of life'
I take this as the changing colors of the leaves in different seasons...
"Their stories are lost
swept down far away rivers
set adrift on emptiness and cast
here on this wedge of beach"
You know I have always heard the saying "if walls could talk" but I now get the idea of "if trees could talk" from this. They would have stories to tell I am sure..
"Truly they are ghosts
pale as sun-bleached bone
haunting back to the soils back
to storied waves of dream"
Truly....very nice Erin...
Kay Laon Anders
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Nice
Great write.
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