#321 - I love to look up into a tree

 

18.xi.20

321

I love to look up into a tree

 

and call some creature

not by name

 

go leafing through

and up to blue

or wander out from cloud

not empty ever

but vanishing

 

see how the limbs  

are all between

high roads!

 

climb the trunk

and branches

as if there were no top

but all forever

far

 

and one day

we shall see

 

hello and here you are

each activity intent

winged or cling

by how many feet

paw claw ascend?

 

no end but

hear the whistling, trill

then the knock

a ratchety tickle of

somebody at it

 

all from scratch you’ll say

higher and

deep in the bole

whet whistle

 

here in these arms

under leaf over

 

colours tuneful

come winter sunfleck  

 

breezes you’ll breathe in

tree is climate

mulches down

makes soil

it teaches too

 

think! tree is

as much under as up

travel that dark down

worm it!  little kip

 

rise fall rested days pile

in rings lie hidden

deeper than you’ll see

 

as long as we’re all still standing

a tree is full of time

it teems in the seed

 

think of the air is pumping

all for the birds come close

and take our toxins in

 

tree is a merry-go-round

and a Maying

ribbon decked

come courting

 

tree holds a summer sun

limb’s length

and when the branches dance

make its own breeze

 

sometimes I look up a tree

in the book

call to it by name then

stand for a tendril touch

 

come climb me vines

now ages in us

 

spin me fresh through seasons

 

no one’s counting

little tickle of paws

and trickle down till

the leaf shook light

drip drops

 

our shelter

and our storm lit night

our frost warm

poor man kindling

story told

 

track this far

once endless

hardly see the stars

 

think before the blade then

it has no power but

heads give licence

hands bid on

think why each time

and ask each other

 

call creatures to a namelessness

it’s where the words are first from

felled and stacked

like winter

like a roof and walls

but leave this one

a bark bulge

here where the harpoon

 

tall, straight

and older than our telling

 

we’ll want this for them all to come

a beckon

but no one gets their arms about

 

isn’t it love

to look up

to a tree