#sycamore
Old Sycamore, do you bend your spine
to memorize the rain’s wet signature---
do you count the rings as loss or lore,
and when you sway, is it a wish or a whine?
Old Sycamore, how do you hold the grief
of split bark, the carpenter ant’s slow siege,
the girl who carved her lover’s lie so deep
sap wept two summers just to seal that leaf?
Old Sycamore, why do you raise your crown
like a chalice for the lightning’s kiss?
Do you mistake the storm for holy sound,
the scorched branch for a psalm of permanence?
Old Sycamore, where do you store the small
murders of frost, the robin’s broken egg,
the boy who climbed your shoulders just to fall,
then blamed the bruise upon your crooked leg?
Old Sycamore, when do you decide
to drop the limb too heavy with its dead---
do you practice mercy like a kind of pride,
or simply feel the rot and bow your head?
Old Sycamore, I ask because I know
the winter I keep folded in my chest.
Teach me which scars to wear and which to grow
through, before I ask which branch is next.
May 3
May 3, 2026 at 6:41 PM UTC
How I miss that sycamore now. It’s gnarled and twisted yet perfectly elegant branches, crowding around me, holding me in my solitude.
Unconditional love that roots deep into the ancient soil of this place of moss and myths, surrounded me and pushed through layers of old leaves to get to me.
In that place, with those that live from earth, I feel welcomed home. Whenever I return there it feels permanent, a settled soul that had found its space in this, the damp side of the valley
Nov 28, 2024
Nov 28, 2024 at 3:28 PM UTC
eight green shoots appear
hope has fragile roots I fear
slaughtered son reborn
Sep 10, 2024
Sep 10, 2024 at 1:33 PM UTC
Found me out in the
Sycamore tree, swaying soft
On an evening breeze
Jul 21, 2021
Jul 21, 2021 at 7:27 PM UTC
_see - cah - moh - re_
you used to say that
the wrong ones
dont matter to you, baby-
_what if im wrong?_
what if i'm not the right one
for you
_see - cah - moh - re_
you used to say that
the wrong ones
don't matter to you, darling-
but what if you are?
and _you're not the right one_
_for me?_
_sturdy, sturdy_
as the sycamore tree
is my love for you,
my darling thee
but as the roots, spreading
continuously till bedrock-
_there is end to us,_
_there is end to love._
_see - cah - moh - re_
you say that
the right ones dont matter to you now
for they have no stories
to tell
no regrets to burn
and like the sycamore tree
that you've always pronounce wrong;
till there is growth in stagnation.
_I know you're right for me._
Aug 9, 2020
Aug 9, 2020 at 1:29 PM UTC
Sikorki tchnienie w locie musnęło ziemię,
Kresy, wrzosy, suche liście też na wietrze.
Na sykomorze dalekiej Arabii ustała,
skulonego u jej korzeni tego, co sonety
o Aleppo układał, wysłuchała,
i przeto myślami po raz pierwszy
swe osmolone smogiem skrzydełka przetarła:
"Ku czemu się wykluwałam? Ku czemu latałam?
Swym trelem, uwagi skinieniem, czego mam być wyrażeniem?"
Nagle poczuła w każdej małej kości:
"Odpowiedź jest jedna: Miłości"
Że ma ona twarz wszystkiego, niczego, spojrzenia naszego:
Dwóch samców złączonych łabędzia czarnego,
Smutku dla szczęścia innego znoszonego,
Sekretu czule z łzami deszczowi wyznanego
I drzewa z grzyba korzeniem splątanego.
Że ku temu radość innym daje, że tego jest formą,
Wszystkich uczuć, chwil i wrażeń zmową.
"Dziękuję", na tą myśl światu odpowiedziała,
z wdzięczności dla poety z dołu
korę drzewa pocałowała,
i z nową tęsknotą, ku niebu Syrii,
odleciała.
Jun 17, 2020
Jun 17, 2020 at 6:03 AM UTC
_My misgivings hide among the shadows,
In the tangle of long grass along the hedgerow
Between your wide open fields and my cultivated lawn.
Unspoken truths crowd out the spring bulbs,
Now snarled with weeds and thorned with blackberry,
The cobbled pathway which once linked my hope with your promise.
Will you meet me at the gate by the old sycamore tree?
If yes, then bring your dreams, untethered, and the dappled autumn sunshine,
I will bring my careful notions and the soft spring rain.
Prim roses and wild lilac; a velvet ash and sweet chestnuts,
Your gypsy summer, my redbud winter,
Our season, one garden._
Nov 6, 2019
Nov 6, 2019 at 3:35 PM UTC
1. peeling wallpaper
2. unembossed boarskin
3. sunburnt mahogany
4. sequin firewood
5. bible page bark
6. chocolate tendrils
7. exfoliating exoskeleton
8. bleached crimson
9. acid wash chestnut
10. sycamore's elbow
Aug 1, 2019
Aug 1, 2019 at 1:22 PM UTC
Squeeze gently like lemons and fruits
Sweet nectar juices produced
**** tongue close to core
Butterscotch like tapped sycamore
Perspiration seeps from peel
Porous citrus aromates near
Grown in sun among the wildflowers
Oh how I love her, even when she sours
Mar 16, 2019
Mar 16, 2019 at 8:03 PM UTC
I like to think I'll find peace for me
resting beneath a sycamore tree.
I can't feel its roots burrow into my body,
sapping me of my strength.
No
No
No
No
No
Can't you see?
There is peace beneath this sycamore tree.
Look at how it shelters me
in the shade, so I can't see the sun.
No
No
No
No
No
What on earth are you telling me now?
This is just a simple sycamore tree
it is not acting sycophantically.
I'm not held down, it's protecting me.
No
No
No
No
No
*It wants your death to fertilize its growth.
You're rooted to the sycophantic tree.*
Just go, there is nothing here for you.
I'm corrupted, leave without me.
Sep 16, 2018
Sep 16, 2018 at 9:32 PM UTC
That cold, harsh,
February rain slashes against
the panes of glass in my bedside window.
The sycamore tree in the front yard
with it's thick lashes,
groaning,
rattling,
has chased away the coo of the owl.
I've grown used to it's lullaby
and, as I drift off,
I worry a tired thought:
will he come back?
Feb 28, 2018
Feb 28, 2018 at 1:01 AM UTC
Day breaks on Doubletop Mountain, shadowing villages below.
Three-thousand eight hundred feet tall, it captures the eye!
And standing at attention there in front of me, a battalion of Sugar Maples in full…. Fall…. Regalia!
Cascading tones of Crimsons, Burgundy, scarlet reds and Golden Hue.
Gazing over Dunk Hill as farmer’s plow fields, turn again for fertility,
There are only brief streams of life giving sunlight, and now the sky turns to a pale grey.
Me, well I live for this time of year….enjoying the evening autumn constellations,
Or Moms dining table adorned with Indian corn and blackberry canes!
Bessie's Margaretville home begins the fall ritual of canning and drying.
Breaking out winter clothes…as she proclaims "no whites after Labor Day"!
The last bit of warmth now dwells just behind the Catskill’s Harvest Moon,
And the V of geese honk their good-byes to the summer sun.
Oct 17, 2017
Oct 17, 2017 at 3:02 PM UTC
Be awake and walk
Through the copse of trees.
Descend the staircase
To the warm fire's will.
In thy merry home
Life begins to flow.
Rise once more among
The sycamore trees.
Sep 17, 2017
Sep 17, 2017 at 4:56 PM UTC
Harmonica and strums sail my shores
Tell my whole clan sonny, he ain't good
That I met a troller under a sycamore
He passed me all the love as he veiled
We walked around,camouflaged by leaves
Tell mummy he was a preacher's son
A soul that was open and hid it's stick
Unharmonised in accapellas I drowned
Swingers of melodic stormy strings
Tell sassy to keep her tassels tucked
To calm her tussles and noisy gongs
Shake on the octave of the beats
Whisked dreams of the lost yesterdays
Tell Jimmy to listen to her heart raise
Tie her down, bring her back home
Liberate and let her fly like a wild bird
Apr 28, 2016
Apr 28, 2016 at 6:42 PM UTC