Simply Trees

I took a walk through Stage Fort Park on Sunday and shared my solitude with the trees and rocks there. The summer crowds have left and there just aren't as many people walking and climbing along the paths to keep the trees company.

Come meet some of my friends.

Woods
by Wendell Berry
I part the out thrusting branches
and come in beneath
the blessed and the blessing trees.
Though I am silent
there is singing around me.
Though I am dark
there is vision around me.
Though I am heavy
there is flight around me.

My friends on the rocky knoll keep a lookout over Half Moon Beach. They saw some divers earlier today but told me they haven't seen anyone else on the beach lately.

Tree Life
by Alan Sugar
I believe a tree exists
for making each turn a destination.
I think it is possible to travel this way--on all roads at the same time.

When I look at a tree--
thin, wide--
I move on roads
that become as fragile
as paper threads.

I still believe it is possible to follow them.
I look and at the same time I arrive
at those final points.
They call to me like a circle of voices,
like a breath of a star.

I arrive and at last I rediscover something
from the start--
points attached to the sky
like seeds filled with light.

The journey happens in a single glance.
A branch invites me to travel.
The root remembers the house
in which I was born.

Solitude
by Carole Z. Spinelli
consider a tree whose seed was swept
across the landscape while it wept
and now
in distant soil is kept to grow

a solitary tree
against rocky shelf of mountainside
or in some cornfield, endless
wide

for it, adversity lasts long
and it must by itself be strong
no forest round to share the sting of angry sun
and pounding rain
it simply cannot take its ease by leaning
against other trees

i should think that from the start
in such a tree there dwells a heart
and soul
that though apart from other trees
finds solace in the beasts and breeze
and that its lonesome tenure yields
beholdeness
from peaks and fields

Next time you have some time, please visit my tree friends at Stage Fort.

Simply Trees.

C_A_B