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Kayla Chappell Apr 2021
The trees,

They whisper to me.

Of the things they want me to believe.

The trees, say

You are strong.

You are tall.

You will rise,

Like me.

The wind,

Whisper’s to me,

Be like me.

Be wild, be free.

Forgive. Let in.

The waves,

Speak to me.

With their resilience,

Their everlasting crash.

Forward and back, Forward and back.

The waves tell me,

Keep going.

The world will still go on without you,
The waves will still crash
The wind will still soar
The trees will still stand tall.
Seasons will change,

So keep going.
Stay strong. Be resilient. Let go, Let in.

Just,
Be.
Cathy Apr 2021
You have the power
You do it because you can
To grow more money
Through exploitation
The price is paid
By another
The cost is something
They can’t recover
I know it doesn’t
Matter to you
That I’m here
Begging too
You’ve heard it before
And it falls
On deaf ears
Like the bird calls
Another cut
Is made
And more lives
Are taken in trade
For the ancients
There’s no coming back
As they are laid
Stack by stack
And carted off
Down the blasted road
They should stand tall
Not be dead and towed
Once they’re gone
And none are left
Will you too then
Stand bereft?
You’ll have to find
A new way to make a living
Knowing from history
That you learned nothing
You can’t undo
This kind of mistake
But what do you care?
You take take take
I did so want to reach out
To those giants and see
Unbroken uncut untouched
Forests with tree after tree after tree
They jump from high trees
Yellowish-Brown swift leapers
In the torrid heat
©️ 2021 Joshua Reece Wylie. All rights reserved.
Haiku.
Inspired by nature.
Manx Pragna Mar 2021
a church bell rings out in the distant fog
that hangs over our morning today
to and fro the birds chirp
with songs more intricate than the ear can hear
dew droplets rest on the ends of spruce leaves
their sprigs, shaken, from the rain weather greeted it
and whether storms lie in wait
tomorrow
i wait to meet it
Winnalynn Wood Mar 2021
The mossy banks and the flourishing trees
To me it seems a shade of viridian green

With the deepest pine hue and a touch of blue
The depths of its cascade cast the eye askew

And you may be tempted to decorate with it
Just don’t forget the enchanted spell casted within

Beautiful and mysterious and eternally seen
You’ll find yourself gazing on viridian green
Ayesha Mar 2021
He’s dead, the *******
Last I saw him up the Bombax tree
Stealing wool out the clouds
Rolling it into ***** and
hanging them by the boughs

I cracked its hollow bones
He helped cut the rest—
Together, I tied them firm
And covered with leaves
covered with dreams
with paints

Houses, and red bushes,
and green birds I made
All, beneath them bruised skies, I placed
I gifted them all to him,
He hung them by the cotton *****
— by the fiery blooms
of that flushed tree
We carved songs out the dirt
Carved for the withered,
and the birds

He’s dead, the *******—
Chopped down the Bombax tree
and buried our flowers
— buried them breathing
My paintings, he nailed to the sky
Pieces of clouds lie bare in the mud
Where he planted a poem
and spilled his soul to
water the seed
that would never sprout

For the dead, we wrote,
—for the winged
They at my colours laugh
and I listen, and I listen, and I laugh
A dreamer that he was,
a dreamer he made of me
He lives there now, the traitor—
plucked the sleep out my nights
One by two by three by ten

Bombax tree, we joked, ******
red out the stilled
now we do not joke, now we’re still—
Red flowers stilled—
He’s dead, the *******
Chopped down our home
Left me with those empty boards
Red, his very own paint
Blue, stollen from the dawn

A thief that he was
a thief he made of me—
I, too, borrow yellow out the daisies
and trick these frogs into spitting green
But what do I paint?
He’s deaf, the *******.
Dumb, even—
What do I paint, huh?
The whole **** world’s
a painting gone wrong
What do I birth out these tired hues?
Last I did, he sold them to the wind
The *******—
beautiful, dead *******
Traitor—
Bombax tree is also called red cotton tree.
Edmundo Mar 2021
While walking and looking at the trees
With some leaves burned by the sun
Meshing with the green coloration
A single tree carrying the whole weight of a painting

But why can’t I see the marks of the brushing
Why can’t I see the warmth of the red leaves
Or the happiness in the spared green ones
Why can’t I see the beauty in it
Why this painting seems to scape life

The strangest feeling as I know,
In this tree I see most of what reality can be
Is the most my eyes can capture
Is the most my mind will shape anything
Ever

Yes it is life, and it is reality
But a cold one.
Or is it a burning one?
Seen by frozen eyes
clmathew Mar 2021
~A man travels
from Mindanao to Kyushu and says his inner geography
is enlarged by each new place.
Is it?
Might he not grow more by staring for twenty-four hours
at a single pine needle?

—Arthur Sze, "Parallax", Gift of Tongues

Trees!
written March 22nd, 2021

I know the answer
to the question posed above
is of course the single pine needle
but I am tired of this pine needle
day after day, year after year
this same pine needle.

I am sure if my heart opened enough
this pine needle would teach me the answer
to the question I can't think of
that would make everything ok
but I want to see other trees!

I want to see trees I never imagined
armies of them marching over hills
and also the lone banyan tree in the desert in India.

I want to see the first tree after crossing the ocean
and the last tree before the tundra.

I want to see the Tree of the Year!
every one that is still alive!
and mourn the ones that don't exist anymore.

I want to see the 5000 year old bristlecone pines in California
and visit the seedling I planted in grade school in our backyard.

I want to see the tree of life Yggdrasill
and Anne Frank's chestnut tree in Amsterdam.

I want to see every tree
growing along every fence-line
on every field men have ever plowed.

Only then, maybe, will I be satisfied to return to
this same pine needle.
I have a thing for trees! The European Tree of the Year is a real contest! There's a popularity contest I can get behind. Yggdrasil is a mythological tree, but that was sort of the point, to never get back to that same pine needle lol.

The banyan tree mentioned in the poem is a specific tree I remember seeing on a school grounds when I was an exchange student in India.

I grew up in the Midwestern United States, so those trees along fence lines are very familiar. Those are the trees I grew up with. Stubborn, sneaky trees placed just right to not be plowed under. And yes, I chose to have men plowing the fields. Historically that's how it was in my family and in families around us.

I obsess about punctuation, and ultimately just hope that people will read it in their own voice, taking breaks where make sense for them.
Glenn Currier Mar 2021
Ghosts

The ghosts float about
sometimes above my head
sometimes in my chest
they wrap themselves
Oh to be lycan
I saw a wolf in the northwest covered with snow
blue eyes looking right through me
as if to say wake up you stupid human
stuck in the mud
float in snow my man!
I feel the heat on my inner thighs
creeping upward tickling enticing
as if the summer is trying to peak its head
through cold winter soil
the shiny black snake coils
around my ankles
squeezes telling me to be not afraid
of the primordial divine impulse
to take my earthiness and embrace it
bring it to the heavens where it belongs
with my spirit.

The Woman

The long thin silk scarf around her neck
***** and flies off her left shoulder
like angel wings in the wind
caresses my cheek and neck
wants me within her feminine self.
Ah! what sweetness to behold!
her soft skin gentlizes me
takes my hairy clunky body
lifts it into my dreams
into her moistness.

Awake

And now I am awake
to spring in its irrepressible green
daffodils at the base of the pear tree
direct my eyes from earth to sky
like an organic gothic arch
long puffy clouds stand still
against the bright azure sky
heaven on earth.
I wasn’t sure I could allow myself anymore the freedom to just let my mental images take me, line to line. I have to say I am a tiny bit surprised. Inspired by M-E’s poem, Night of the Beheaded Flower p.03 Final
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