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.

Step down from the drone of mid-afternoon sting
to the cool of a bowl in the shade of a spell
where the sphagnum-crawled rocks crouch with buttermilk blooms
and the bog violets pour out their purple perfume.
You will find in the hollow a sparkling jewel
erratically spattered with glittering pools
where the shards of the sun slice their way through the haze
to repose on the throne of the hummock's soft plush.
And all is deep-rooted in moist verdant freshness
with climbers entwined around cascades of vines
and all that's contained in the small mountain's hollow
perpetually thrives in the gold dappled light.
Creep  cautiously down to that cavernous bower
immerse all your senses and drench every pore
with the contrast of coolness and shimmering beauty
where you'll tremble and shiver for want of the heat.

Take a seat
Feel the soil
Consult the moisture boss
Peat moss
Care for your plants
Nature does not leave it to chance
Sphagnum moss
No digging up this boss
Removed with eco in mind
Habitat let's be kind
Harvesters today,
drain swamp land anyway
While taking sphagnum,
they remove peat moss
Habitat loss
Maxing out profits,
and their time,
in swamp wellie lockets

© 2022 Carol Natasha Diviney