I’m heading to a special wood.
A magic place to be.
Where whispers can be heard,
from swaying branch of every tree.

There’s Oak and Willow,
Ash and Cherry too.
Each has a tale to tell
and they’re whispering it to you.

I’m going to a special tree.
It’s been here just one thousand days.
At its trunk I sit to listen
to the branches in the breeze.

I pass to it my confidences
and tell it tales anew.
In the hope you hear me
through prayers I send to you.

They don’t just talk, you know.
They take the time to listen too.
If you’ve got a tale to tell,
the tree will pass it on for you.

So, find yourself a special tree
and tell to it your tale.
With a rustle in its leaves,
your story, upon the breeze, will sail.

Each tree, like a guardian,
stands tall and stout.
Giving succour to the ground
and all the flora ‘round about.

Their branches reaching to the sky.
Their roots the soil beneath.
A bridge ‘tween heaven and earth.
Giving faith to my belief.

I gaze upon this special tree.
Think back a thousand days.
‘Tis here you’re laid to rest.
The place I come to pray.

This tree brings hope, that much is true,
and like a conduit,
through it, ‘tis my way,
to commune with you.

The rain-modulated trees and the hoarse leaf
That in themselves tell a love so complete,
Were once the playthings of lovers’ sights
Who passed here once and once and never.
Love the destitution of love.

Keep your trees, keep them for your heaven of ashen dusk
And night like the pale-faced deathmask of emperors,
No reason that the commoner to oblivion is hushed,
These old-wise woods and leaves, peopled without us.

Keep Macedonian dust lightly conquered over the breeze,
So that it shoots its tail like the centuries-sole comet,
The scorched earth left by Alexander’s mapmaker eyes,
Swung wide like his Sarissophoroi over Persian might.

Remember the lesser grove of his teacher Aristotle’s tribe,
They have only slipped their sandals off, to bare themselves
Of sound and the concourse of the foot’s impulse,
Caught the lithesome wind, to flow outside our hearing,
And muse as empire of air and loss and forgotten walks.

Keep your trees and the darkening sky through them
That remind me of the passing into the past.
Never is the poem from tongue of ***** or plow.

Ferns turned Bronze and Gold,

Oak holding on to their leaves,

Brambles becoming tired,

Goldcrests flit in the heights of the Pines,

Low sun blazing, blinding,
 
Illuminated bark of the Birch,

Winter of the woods.

On a winter day I'm walking in the woods,
I'm walking with the trees;
their story-telling leaves beneath me.
How old, I often wonder,
Would one need to be
to read the dreams of trees?
Perhaps that's what we see
when we eventually leave
our livelihoods behind us,
and stumble in the woods
until our memories find us.

Two men from the city are lost
In the northern woods,
on Christmas Eve.
Fear has not set in yet
and they wonder at
the paper-thin trees,
that seem painted on parchment
in the mist and moonlight.
One absorbs it in silence
while the other sings as he walks:
“Jul, jul strålande jul.”
"It's a Christmas song,"
he tells his companion,
who tries to shut him up.
How differently two people can react
to magic and moonlight,
to loneliness and mist.
One sings on in silence:
“***** över vita skogar,”
While the other’s head is filled
With numbers and plans
and dreams of saving of the world!
But little does the singer know
how much the redeemer wants
to know that streaming light,
that unfettered joy.
That comes with a struggle,
Not just to survive,
But to right the world for all.