"lichen" poems
Healing leaves are now disrobed branches
on the edge of this wilderness.
Many tall Douglas Fir stand sentinel
over 100 foot tall amazing grace — the fleeting leaves
expose the beauty of the moss clad scaffolds
adorned with a lime-grey lichen lace
Nature is my refuge — solid ground to stand
in this harmony and peacefulness.
Jesse Stillwater — December 2018
Dec 2, 2018
Dec 2, 2018 at 12:38 PM UTC
Lightning Strikes 323 Norwegian Reindeer
Hunters made the discovery, stealth and *****
dabbed anoraks all for nothing not to mention
a critical downwind approach and camo blend
that rendered Frode and Jørgen or Ove and Anders
invisible against rock and lichen and cloudberry
but offered little protection against thoughts sublime.
Ove, perhaps, cursing God for poor sportsmanship,
the divine equivalent of dynamiting fish, while Anders
gave silent thanks to fortune, a freezer full of steaks.
Sep 16, 2016
Sep 16, 2016 at 8:03 AM UTC
The sun is shining through the trees
Tiny rain-washed bluebells
Are growing at my feet
Birds are calling to each other
Moss is growing on the ground
And lichen on the trunks of trees
Dappled sunshine lights my path
Ferns are showing off their green lace
And dewdrops are sparkling on the grass
While the sky couldn't be a bluer sapphire hue
A path of cherry blossoms in bloom
Tower overhead
Their sweet fragrance dancing on the breeze
A circle of mushrooms
Is where the Fairies dance each night
That is where I dance too
Today is such a lovely day
Spent in my enchanted Woodland
~Marian~
Jan 2, 2014
Jan 2, 2014 at 5:26 PM UTC
Flowers preach to us if we will hear:--
The rose saith in the dewy morn,
I am most fair;
Yet all my loveliness is born
Upon a thorn.
The poppy saith amid the corn:
Let but my scarlet head appear
And I am held in scorn;
Yet juice of subtle virtue lies
Within my cup of curious dyes.
The lilies say: Behold how we
Preach without words of purity.
The violets whisper from the shade
Which their own leaves have made:
Men scent our fragrance on the air,
Yet take no heed
Of humble lessons we would read.
But not alone the fairest flowers:
The merest grass
Along the roadside where we pass,
Lichen and moss and sturdy ****
Tell of His love who sends the dew,
The rain and sunshine too,
To nourish one small seed.
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It’s a place of healing,
the forest floor.
A place alive with secrets and knowing.
My learned sense of reality catches on the brambles and thorns as I pass,
and the tentative uncertainty of my untrained step
loosens with the soil on my feet
in the puddles on the path.
It’s a place of healing,
the forest floor.
A place intent on living.
Where each movement beneath the
towering company of life informs the next.
A little slower this time.
A little softer.
More quiet.
And with each surrendering breath,
another can be heard.
One more colossal and unified in its polyrhythmic sway.
The trees and vines and creatures with their watchful eyes,
and the earth underfoot,
swell and recede in a merry yawn.
On my twilight walk to fetch water
the dark patiently dilutes all colour,
but allows detail a stolen moment to define my way.
The texture of bark on the lean oak trees around the spring,
the burbling contortion of their reflection at its yielding mouth,
the lichen-rough rocks,
smoothed at the water's edge,
all persist and scintillate into grey.
The soft pricked dendrites of moss cushion my knee
as I slip and fall,
one foot in the spring!
And my scream and giggle pierce the listening night,
and there is no other human being in sight.
So I sit. Wet and still. In the moss.
For tonight, when the darkness stretches its veil impenetrably-tight
over the forest I shall be inside,
to find my place within it's creeping, writhing breath.
Its a place of healing,
the forest floor.
Where living things may grow.
Aug 15, 2011
Aug 15, 2011 at 4:39 AM UTC
Like this.
Like that.
Like this
likes that
that likes
these & those.
Liken this
to that
lichen which
grows
so slow
over corpse & stone,
the likes of which
so few know
or like, let alone
love, like
we know
we should.
Jul 30, 2010
Jul 30, 2010 at 5:36 PM UTC
Distant blue field
further, still the dawn
warmth of day, falls away
disappears into a
fragrant piney forest
a path - twine and twigs, mossy laid
soft steps, of hoof prints made
in tunnels wooded, dimly lit
gray lichen amid the moss
raindrops magnified, gazing through
boletus spongy staining blue
fat berries, salal and thimble red
sparrow rakes his nesting bed
when all the light has gone away
night slips silent into another day.
Sep 13, 2012
Sep 13, 2012 at 11:25 PM UTC
~~~<¤>~~~
through
lichen clouds
and lace of leaves
moonlight wanders
wends and weaves
a cowl'd orb
a saintly pearl
a poem rewritten
by the world
a swooning dove
a gentle face
in loving here
there's no disgrace
brings She out
her mystery still
floating effortless
at will
how oft does She
rehearse the game
in many phases
do the same
in Her embrace
sweet dreams are free
unbound by
moonlight mystery
soulsurvivor
(C) 8/29/2015
Aug 30, 2015
Aug 30, 2015 at 12:42 AM UTC
under the sludge of this depression, I am awake. it’s morning outside but that doesn’t change a thing.
tiredness takes me to quiet places. I follow like I’m devout.
this forest is new. there’s a drumming of a heartbeat within the trunks of these trees.
it thrums under my fingertips. blood rushes forward to touch this rhythm.
songbirds nest, plume against plume for love and for rest. the birdsong is sweet as saccharine.
I taste the sap on my lips, its nectar, thick with agape. a salve for myriad laments under the roof of a single bell jar.
the indigo sky convulses, telling of fortunes. the clouds retch gilded roses.
blades of grass fence the circumferences of leaves in gypsy winds. the forest warms like a flame.
my body sways in solipsistic wonder. the crescents of my nails are crusted with lichen.
my limbs are drawn into its boughs, like gravity. like the bark is starved.
my mind is foliage and my crown is littered with inflorescence. my sky is finally cerulean and lilac.
each gall is an ancient hurt. each wound is a knot.
I breathe my mourning. I wait to bloom.
Apr 24, 2020
Apr 24, 2020 at 3:07 AM UTC
You and I could be lichen.
You'd be algae
and I fungus.
E plural unis.
I would envelop you,
not to smoother,
but to romance, house, protect.
You would photosynthisize the sun
filling our pantry shelves.
Oh, what fun we could have
if we were a lichen.
Mar 1, 2012
Mar 1, 2012 at 2:26 PM UTC
I cannot spare water or wine,
Tobacco-leaf, or poppy, or rose;
From the earth-poles to the Line,
All between that works or grows,
Every thing is kin of mine.
Give me agates for my meat,
Give me cantharids to eat,
From air and ocean bring me foods,
From all zones and altitudes.
From all natures, sharp and slimy,
Salt and basalt, wild and tame,
Tree, and lichen, ape, sea-lion,
Bird and reptile be my game.
Ivy for my fillet band,
Blinding dogwood in my hand,
Hemlock for my sherbet cull me,
And the prussic juice to lull me,
Swing me in the upas boughs,
Vampire-fanned, when I carouse.
Too long shut in strait and few,
Thinly dieted on dew,
I will use the world, and sift it,
To a thousand humors shift it,
As you spin a cherry.
O doleful ghosts, and goblins merry,
O all you virtues, methods, mights;
Means, appliances, delights;
Reputed wrongs, and braggart rights;
Smug routine, and things allowed;
Minorities, things under cloud!
Hither! take me, use me, fill me,
Vein and artery, though ye **** me;
God! I will not be an owl,
But sun me in the Capitol.
3.2k
Did you see them take the green fields
one by one, now line by line on hills in echelon?
Still, holding ground held holy by their sons;
no longer marching to the smoke and drum.
Where bugler called the day to final rest,
now silence grows like lichen on the stones.
For those who gave their all at our behest,
our memories alone will not atone.
Do you see the fires burning at a distance,
and more hallowed ground broken day by day?
Each new stone laid a fading reminiscence;
each new boquet soon fading into gray.
What better way to honor sacrifice
than to pause and speak their names aloud.
Until the gods of war are pacified;
until our flag no longer serves as shroud.
May 30, 2016
May 30, 2016 at 7:28 AM UTC
The Mountain keeps all secrets. Crusted lichen on timeworn boulders. High altitude longing for alpine daisies. Carefree blossoms, long ago plucked, gone to seed, restless in the fertile ground. Wildflowers bloom shortly sweet, fleeting paintbrush to layered canvas. Fairy slippers lost on crumbling doorsteps. Glacier lilies pressed between avalanched pages. Forget-me-nots in forgotten blue hollows. The common harebell feels anything but common when seen through a lover's eyes. Forest tiger, your bulbs taste bitter. Purple lupines sage with fuzzy-leafed logic. Fireweed, ***** unadorned, eternally reaching. Lousewort, spreading phlox, leave this scarlet alone. Listen to Indian Henry, it's bad luck to trample what is sacred. The devil dreams behind steep and sheltered walls. Keep to the Wonderland, bypass this Trail of Shadows. Seek ancient hunting grounds, steadfast shelter in the wooded clearing. There is no pearly everlasting along these old trails. Paradise lost may never be regained.
Mar 14, 2016
Mar 14, 2016 at 8:25 PM UTC
A skeletal stag standing ten trees tall
Hanging moss adorning His wide antlers, patches of rocky lichen covering His driftwood bones
Large cloven hooves stepping carefully yet purposefully among the bleached remains littering the forest floor
He alone reigns here, in this place beneath ours
Even the pines fall silent as He passes
Even the stones
The air is old here
Thick with a power lost to time
Only He is left; a dimming flicker in a collective consciousness
Keeping a lonely vigil in an ancient forest a thousand miles deep and a hand's width beside us
No breath is drawn here
The soft rattling of His timber ribcage is the sole sound as He moves
Ceaselessly
Without rest
To a place always changing, never quite there
The ossuaries lay in a heavy silence
He assures the eternal slumber of all who rest here
The hollows in His skull seem to observe them, undisturbed
He moves on
His name has been forgotten for millennia
This sacred ground has become but a fleeting memory
Few old gods remain, lost to the quickening of time
He remembers, as He stands keeper of this place
Of an age before ours
When they would polish the skulls of the hunt with holy oils in His name
Dancing wildly and unburdened around towering flames
Primal sounds ripping raw from reverent lips
Now He is all but a wavering in the annals
He pauses in His endless march
Raises His great antlers to the thick canopy above
He listens
Feels the shift -- another one has faded
He will most likely be the last of His kind
A somber sentinel tasked with ensuring the dead wake not from their final sleep
Ensuring the silence is suffocating
A deep, weighted vibration
As if the place under ours was itself thrumming with power
Though none remain who once spoke His true name in fearful whispers
He will outlast
For all will eventually come to know
The one they now call death
Nov 6, 2018
Nov 6, 2018 at 8:14 PM UTC
You go up the long track
That will take a car, but is best walked
On slow foot, noting the lichen
That writes history on the page
Of the grey rock. Trees are about you
At first, but yield to the green bracken,
The nightjars house: you can hear it spin
On warm evenings; it is still now
In the noonday heat, only the lesser
Voices sound, blue-fly and gnat
And the stream's whisper. As the road climbs,
You will pause for breath and the far sea's
Signal will flash, till you turn again
To the steep track, buttressed with cloud.
And there at the top that old woman,
Born almost a century back
In that stone farm, awaits your coming;
Waits for the news of the lost village
She thinks she knows, a place that exists
In her memory only.
You bring her greeting
And praise for having lasted so long
With time's knife shaving the bone.
Yet no bridge joins her own
World with yours, all you can do
Is lean kindly across the abyss
To hear words that were once wise.
2.7k
Faintly, faintly, I’m beginning to hear you.
“Teacher” is what I call you, and what you are to me.
“Teach me.” No matter where I may be
my identity will apparently always be
“The Student” and I, like an actor given a role,
play it.
Quietly, a pair of eyes gaze sponge-like
at your catalogue of lessons,
trying to erase the body —
— which is too loud, too needy,
too everything —
and try not to let you be drowned out
by my dreams, my ideas, my expectations.
What are you saying now?
Something about… my own powerlessness?
Not the throngs of swans and the songs of the dawn?
Instead, prolonged wrongs and the dawning sense
that I don’t belong here?
No! No, that can’t be the lesson.
I am too natural, too sky-edged.
I’m too much the daughter of moss,
too akin to the hanging lichen that drapes ghost-like off the trees
and too free, heart up against the sea.
In short, too me.
But this means nothing to you.
I have to go quiet again, stop filling in the blanks
with words and more words. Recalling my role,
I listen for a lesson.
(And this is the first lesson I learn:
“Be Quiet And Listen”)
Sep 28, 2018
Sep 28, 2018 at 2:11 AM UTC
LICHEN laden, granite cross,
Reminder of a celtic culture’s loss,
An icon to placate a harsh deity,
A religious symbol, an outward plea.
LADEN cross, granite lichen,
Not a mere whim, but a deliberate decision,
Ley-line power, here to focus,
Awaiting another mid-summer solstice.
GRANITE cross, lichen laden,
Sculptured for a dark-haired maiden,
Elaborate and ultimate statement of love,
A prayer for a union to be blessed from above.
CROSS, lichen laden, granite
Manufactured on a far off planet,
Crafted and left to become immortal,
Marker of a time traveller’s portal.
Jul 27, 2017
Jul 27, 2017 at 2:16 PM UTC
It was a lilac day, a dream of scented heaven
what world sings of this blue, green summer?
Early morning raindrops splash giant maples,
droplets of sun, above far hills
alighting flowering fields, with flashing wings
of tiny sparrows
Cormorant swoops, the falling sky, far beyond
clouds of pink edge the bluest sky
silvery fish, below in cooling waves
blue herons stalk long where
seaweed sways
Sunlight poured, warming mossy woods
tallest trees breathing steam - spectrally
lichen blooms, tiny flowers in the sun
before the dawn of washing rain
a silent ancient forest
Jun 13, 2013
Jun 13, 2013 at 10:52 AM UTC
~for r a/k/a rrr a/k/a woody~
“I will always remember you”
raise you hand if honesty
yet lives inside your muscle
memory of brain, of heart,
there is no one here who hasn’t
uttered them fool lying words
with difficulty we struggle to up
raise faces and places, moments
and images no longer mirrored
within the frontmost places of
our recollection, that searing then,
itself scorched, lichen+moss covered,
our greatest pains, pleasures sworn
allegiances to these razored inflection
points, now scoured by rusty hazes,
and we wonder what has become
of us, what we valued so to savor
as forever memories, their names
gray lady shrouded, and there is
no internet site to aid in self-recovery,
for our selfish selves have been altered,
time, new loves, guilt and other stuff
intersect with mind’s eyes and no mas-
more synapses paths instant linkages
I know you will vociferously argue but
it is almost physical, our shame at losing
them and ourselves, in the morass that
time digs daily deeper for what grieves
us is that losing as the end rushes to close
our story, makes us pick up pen and finger
scratch as best we can inside the lines on
our faces that are/had proofs, witnesses,
that once, we were there at the places,
whose names are no longer mapped any
where, so deep, no archivist’s submersible dare
fathom those fathom’s darkest we would need
to explore without the possibility that we
might implode if we sunk so far to rip apart sea
forests we knowingly, secret-planted to coverup
her memory, the words spoken, the oaths
and promises, we swore, for instance, simply
by saying, “I will always remember you”
p.s. and my self-shaming so great, that my
asking for forgiveness is buried so fast, it
may, not ever been real, just another fiction
Jul 6th, 8:36 AM,
Jul 7, 2023
Jul 7, 2023 at 6:42 AM UTC
---
on a hill stood wicked tree
a single root, branches three
one branch was war
one branch was want
one branch was greed
horrid haunt
its root was pride
its power great
acid soil of perfect hate
its bark like scabs
sulfuric green
a stunted growth
twisted . mean
lichen of ignorance
crusted there
on the north side
of despair
black mushrooms
sprouted from its pores
growing from
starvation's spores
and yet it thrived and gave its fruit
they were put forth by the root
these carried seeds to plant in season
they want it growing for some reason
they plant it lone upon a hill
where it can grow
it's growing
still
it grows from you
it grows from me
we feed that hateful
wicked tree
soulsurvivor
rewritten
(c) 6/13/2015
first draft 2014
Jun 13, 2015
Jun 13, 2015 at 8:26 AM UTC
Petrified are the hoppers who fed on all the corn that died
Terrified are the squirrels whose nuts were taken for harvest
Angry are the birds that never seems to stubble upon a worm
Hungry is the cannibal who tore my flesh and drank from my blood stream
The hoppers will cut the dry hay pasture
Squirrels will dig into poultry houses
Birds will fly to were lichen surfaces rocks
But this cannibal will hunger to death 'cause I will return,
dust to dust, ashes to ashes.
Nov 9, 2018
Nov 9, 2018 at 4:16 AM UTC
On an Archipelago
far from septic isles,
Deep in silent azure
I place broaches and pins
in a wooden box, for safe keeping
And set her dreams on a bed of lichen,
fields of leafy pathway stretching
she’ll nestle woven toad flax and larkspur
to steadfast her conscience.
The Birds of the flock
thrush and dove, sensing her bridle
rejoice in her Mother lode,
precious be their plenteous dawn.
Jul 28, 2012
Jul 28, 2012 at 1:18 PM UTC
The ancient church of St James.
Lead-edged windows, each portion given stained glass faces.
Sunlight rippled on those faces, each face a tale to tell.
Sheltered from the elements, donated from above.
Safety under a covered roof of green lichen.
The bell tower shouted its cheerful peals.
Bridegroom proud. Standing in regimented battle regalia.
Epaulettes almost glowing with excitement.
Matching his shiny shoes.
As he waited for his bride that day.
To make his life complete.
He knew for now, deep in his heart.
That very soon he would depart.
Church bells rang, excitedly, as if missing every second beat.
His heart was missing more.
Glances up.
Between the external aisle, the now laying; no longer living, brothers under standing stones.
A picture of pure innocence in her ivory wedding gown.
Promenading through the church yard to catch her wanted man.
Escorted proudly by him, by the father of the bride.
Into the church they drifted upon ethereal glow.
The vicar bade them welcome.
After hymns and prayers of three.
Holy man he gave his blessings.
Pronounced them man and wife.
As the following morning sun she rose, forbade the joys of married life.
He wanted not to wake his bride.
He left just a bunch of flowers, mauve and blue, forget me nots.
In his heart he hoped he'd see her soon.
Before the wake of summer's moon.
For off to war he went.
Both knew he had to go.
Proud man departed for war, with rivers of silent eyes.
(C) LIVVI
Feb 15, 2014
Feb 15, 2014 at 11:05 AM UTC
Having not done the things I wanted to do
and the things I've done not being what I wanted to do
I sit here looking at lichen on the north side of trees.
Black-capped chickadees
cheerful and truthful expression
grouped in platoons, sharing the point.
The tribes travel together
first finches, then chickadees
following the squirrels every morning.
What luxury, abundance! Handful after handful
of grass seed thrown, into wind.
The corn ripe and the rye with it.
The other main families: pines, roses, peas,
lilies, daisies, heath, birch and oak.
Maple, honeysuckle, pink, mustard, cypress, mint, olive,
buckwheat, primrose, willow, buttercup, saxifrage,
snapdragon, cactus.
Truth may be ascertained by considering
the truth we feel, the truth we're told,
the truth we reason, and the truth we've seen.
It is so good to be a chickadee.
To tell the truth cheerfully and joyfully
in a way that makes others want to live.
Aug 9, 2015
Aug 9, 2015 at 5:59 PM UTC
your gloom rubies roam the miracle, miraculous; lasting orange in the parlor of our most red wednesday... your mood blooms in the parlor of our most red Wednesday
in convolution, bathing everywhere in discrete voluptuous, nocturnal by day and dawn purged. a complete confusion of unique bliss and utter distraction,
masking the perfect lonesome of lost buttons.
to magnify the utter not so !
and not so
at all !
Mab is the Queen.
you float on black goats. fallen. small feet in fleece of midnight. star lit.
your imminence faire beyond pondering. Literally.
you are dreamt intensely.
you leave me as empty as a horn of plenty [ enigma ]
where you. And you alone; have spread
your feast.
you float on white lichen and baby's breath,
churning the waters of auguries
too lovelorn to be well met, but yet, they sustain life
at just that pitch
that forks
the road
there ! you glow in the mirk of my desire. gilded in shadows
far too fierce for the sun's darkside
there !
you abide in
nameless
wisp
your heart, Fey
and indolent.
and your
throne
cats !
Jun 5, 2013
Jun 5, 2013 at 6:56 AM UTC