BECOMING A TREE

Cecelia inside the ancient maple, oil on canvas_8.5" x 14"_2014

THE PERCH

There is a fork in a branch

of an ancient enormous maple...

I climbed up

to the perch

and this time looked

not into the distance but at

the tree inself; its trunk 

contorted by the terrible struggle

of that time when it had its hard time.

After the trauma it becomes less solid.

It may be some such time now comes upon me.

It would have to do with the unaccomplished,

and with the attempted marriage

of solitude and happiness.

-Gallway Kinnell (1927-2014)

Vermont state poet, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Award

 

Inside the guts of an ancient maple

Dearest Readers,

I wish to become an ancient maple like the grande dames that stand like wise, sentinels along Hapenny Road here in Peacham Vermont. I wrote about these last summer in a blog entitled: The Hallof the Mountain Maples.

If this wish is impossible, I want to sink deep inside a hollow belly, squeeze next to an exposed maple heart or merge along a downed log, mingling myself within this natural kinship. I recognize the knurls, and rough-hewn skin in my own hands and face. I want to be inside the trees and paint them.

Squeezed inside an ancient maple–hallowed straight out to the other side

Nestling against twisted bark

Lying along a fallen trunk

My head behind a fallen body

Giving my arm to a limbless trunk

Growing my arm from a stump