V E R S E ❦ I M A G E

[with poems by Robert Frost, Paulann Peterson, Edwin Markham]

Tree At My Window

Tree at my window, window tree,
My sash is lowered when night comes on;
But let there never be curtain drawn
Between you and me.

Vague dream head lifted out of the ground,
And thing next most diffuse to cloud,
Not all your light tongues talking aloud
Could be profound.

But tree, I have seen you taken and tossed,
And if you have seen me when I slept,
You have seen me when I was taken and swept
And all but lost.

That day she put our heads together,
Fate had her imagination about her,
Your head so much concerned with outer,
Mine with inner, weather.

Robert Frost (1874-1963)

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Why the Aging Poet Continues to Write

At a coneflower’s seed-making center,
hundreds of tiny dark florets—
each stiff and sharp—
take turns oozing
their flashes of pollen.
A flagrant
bee-stopping show.

Making a bright circle,
the outermost spiky blossoms
open first to then fade.
Shrinking day by day,
the ring of yellow flame
moves inward.
That heart—what’s at
the flower’s very core—
blazes last.

Paulann Petersen, from Understory, Lost Horse Press, 2013

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These two poems are collected in The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy; edited by John Brehm; Wisdom Publications, 2017.

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No plant community is static. Even the “climax forest” is in constant flux, the flow that is the marker of time’s passage, that is time. All things flow: change, the primary mutable immutable that creates reality.

Observe the climax forest for enough generations (its generations, not ours) and see that its steady state is illusion. Water cycles, carbon cycles, death and reclamation and regeneration: constant flux. Apt metaphor for our life as human individuals. Observe the plant community’s encroachers and invaders, its fuzzy boundaries, its balance never balanced for long – also a metaphor for human communities.

During pandemic if there is one factor that underlies our existential fears it must be separation from community. How small has our circle shrunk? How unwilling are we to step outside or let in the unknown? Anger, anxiety, dread: they must all have the same roots.

When the soil is shallow the tree sends its roots wider. When moisture or minerals are scarce the rootlets’ embrace by mycorrhizal fungi becomes even more welcome.

Human ecology: I watch the Zoom gallery nod and smile and imagine that they are seeing me, too. I step off the trail when other hikers pass but we wave and share a few words at distance. I sit nearby during Linda’s long phone calls with sisters: essential, restoring, redeeming. I even (gasp!) write a few letters. Aren’t we all reaching out to discover some new way of connecting, some way amidst the flux to re-forge community?

Wider, draw the circle wider!

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He drew a circle that shut me out-
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle and took him in!

Outwitted – Edwin Markham (1852-1940)

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Many thanks to the organizers and instructors of Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont who continue their mission of connecting people with nature even during pandemics. Their science-based educational programs have evolved with science-based precautions and modifications to allow small communities to form for a weekend at a time.

One word sums the program and purpose of Great Smoky Mountains National Park: BIODIVERSITY. These photos are from the September 2020 GSMIT program Southern Appalachian Ecology. Immersed in that diversity, I continue to absorb the enrichment, root, stem and blossom, of that community of seekers.

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