On the land of our family
Are the ashes of generations.
Each generation planted with the saplings of the trees
The Cedar, The Fir, The Larch, and The Mountain Ash
Standing regal in the sun's early light.
It is a new day
Standing under their boughs
Comforted by ancestral arms touching
In a circle of Love and Light.
What is emerging?
Sprouting up from under the Sphagnum
It's a seed! Raising its head
Peeking up, and stretching towards the sun.
Ever upward it expands
Though nights of rain and clouds.
Through days of heat and seeming drought.
Yet the seedling grows and endures
Bent by the late summer winds
The fiber of wisdom ever increasing within its core.
At the end of Indian Summer
The frost begins to unleash its chill
The young sapling freezes
As the blanket of white thickens across the land.
With the weight upon it's back
In humility the sapling bends low to kiss the earth.
Bravely holding this asana in the coldest of the winter days.
Today by my window
I am basking in the sunlight of a very early spring,
Bright are shimmering reflections of sunlight snow.
Squinting, with eyes half open and eyes half closed
The small rainbows begin to dance
Between each pair of lashes.
A delighted inner child
Chuckling with joy.
I can hear the sound of water running
And ice falling from the rooftops above.
The snow is finally melting!
The tall cedar boughs dance with the wind.
Up and down, releasing their winter coats
As Ice crystals floating on the air.
Gazing across the white wonder
To the very spot where I last saw our little tree
What of the little seedling?
Is it still alive?
Or broken and crush by the ice and snow?
My musing over the Cedar Sapling
Shifted with a gasping surprise
It sprung up!
Announcing "I am still alive!"
And my inner voice giggled with delight.
Hum, I wonder
Do trees have a heart?
Do they perceive beyond their bark?
Do they remember?
In this very moment the sapling's sudden appearance
During my musing seemed to express, "Yes!"
Is it just a deep enduring feeling
That the elders of this world
Are the 400+ year old Cedars
Keeping their long record of time?
My dear little sapling
may you continue to grow into magnificence.
I will only see your first 100 years.
For your last four hundred
Allow me to lie at your roots
Under the Sphagnum from which you sprung.
And my children will water flowers at your base
That you may grow as the guardian of the ancestor
Who planted your seed and watched you grow.
Yes, the very one who is now delighted that you
Have popped up from under your blanket of snow.
The winter is giving to an early spring here where we live. There is a young sapling outside my kitchen window I have watched for two years now. This is the second season I have watched it pop up out from under the blanket of snow that has covered it thickly each winter. I am amazed at its flexibility, strength, endurance and tenacity. As the years pass I will continue to watch over this little tree with the desire that it will watch over me when I have passed and my body has been laid to rest.
