Old Year Leaves

Photo by Klim Musalimov on Unsplash

The leaves which in the autumn of the year

Fall auburn-tinted, leaving reft and bare

Their parent trees, in many a sheltered lair

Where Winter waits and watches, cold, austere,

Will lie in drifts; and when the snowdrops cheer

The woodland shadows, still the leaves are there,

Though through the glades the balmy southern air

And birds and boughs proclaim that Spring is here.

So lost hopes severed by the stress of life

Lie all unburied yet before our eyes,

Though none but we regard their mute decay;

And ever amid this stir and moil and strife

Fresh aims and growing purposes arise

Above the faded hopes of yesterday.

~ H.T. Mackenzie Bell

From Old Year Leaves: A Volume of Collected Verse (1883)

Bindweed

Source: Arizona Wild Flowers

There is little I can do
besides stoop to pluck them
one by one from the ground,
their roots all weak links,
this hoard of Lazaruses popping up
at night, not the Heavenly Blue
so like silk handkerchiefs,
nor the Giant White so timid
in the face of the moon,
but poor relations who visit
then stay. They sleep in my garden.
Each morning I evict them.
Each night more arrive, their leaves
small, green shrouds,
reminding me the mother root
waits deep underground
and I dig but will never find her
and her children will inherit
all that I’ve cleared
when she holds me tighter
and tighter in her arms.

~ James McKean

Bindweed

Source: Arizona Wild Flowers

There is little I can do
besides stoop to pluck them
one by one from the ground,
their roots all weak links,
this hoard of Lazaruses popping up
at night, not the Heavenly Blue
so like silk handkerchiefs,
nor the Giant White so timid
in the face of the moon,
but poor relations who visit
then stay. They sleep in my garden.
Each morning I evict them.
Each night more arrive, their leaves
small, green shrouds,
reminding me the mother root
waits deep underground
and I dig but will never find her
and her children will inherit
all that I’ve cleared
when she holds me tighter
and tighter in her arms.

~ James McKean

To Look at Any Thing

Image: Wild bleedingheart by Bransford, W.D. Mrs.

To look at any thing,
If you would know that thing,
You must look at it long:
To look at this green and say,
"I have seen spring in these
Woods," will not do - you must
Be the thing you see:
You must be the dark snakes of
Stems and ferny plumes of leaves,
You must enter in
To the small silences between
The leaves,
You must take your time
And touch the very peace
They issue from.

~ John Moffitt

To Look at Any Thing

Image: Wild bleedingheart by Bransford, W.D. Mrs.

To look at any thing,
If you would know that thing,
You must look at it long:
To look at this green and say,
"I have seen spring in these
Woods," will not do - you must
Be the thing you see:
You must be the dark snakes of
Stems and ferny plumes of leaves,
You must enter in
To the small silences between
The leaves,
You must take your time
And touch the very peace
They issue from.

~ John Moffitt

Unchurched

Source: KKK @ PiCSHiP.com/favim.com

It’s Earth that breathes around us,
so perilous in its comforts,
so perfect in impermanence.

Autumnal sun streams through
these yellow maple leaves
translucent as stained glass.

The ground beneath my feet
is strewn with pine cones, acorns.
The random pattern of continuance.

Etched columns of pine and oak.
Incense of resin and fungi.
Great glacial stones for altars.

High winds and choirs of
minor breezes, the whispering hush.
It is the Sabbath. It is enough.

~ Dolores Stewart

Unchurched

Source: KKK @ PiCSHiP.com/favim.com

It’s Earth that breathes around us,
so perilous in its comforts,
so perfect in impermanence.

Autumnal sun streams through
these yellow maple leaves
translucent as stained glass.

The ground beneath my feet
is strewn with pine cones, acorns.
The random pattern of continuance.

Etched columns of pine and oak.
Incense of resin and fungi.
Great glacial stones for altars.

High winds and choirs of
minor breezes, the whispering hush.
It is the Sabbath. It is enough.

~ Dolores Stewart

The doughty oaks

Photo credit: photojock from morguefile.com

Oaks don’t drop their leaves
as elms and lindens do.
They evolved no corky layer,
no special tricks.
They shut off the water.
Leaves hang on withering
tougher than leather.
Wind tears them loose.

Slowly they grow, white oaks
under the pitch pines,
tap roots plunging
deep, enormous carrots.
By the marsh they turn
twisting, writhing
aging into lichens, contorted
like the wind solidified.

In the spring how stubborn
how cautious
clutching their wallets tight.
Long after the maples,
the beeches have leafed out
they sleep in their ragged leaves.
Reluctantly in the buzz and hum
they raise velvet
antlers flushed red,
then flash silvery tassels.
At last vaulted
green chambers of summer.

Ponderous, when mature, as elephants,
in the storm they slam castle doors.
They all prepare to be great
grandfathers, in the meantime
dealing in cup and saucer acorns.

When frost crispens the morning,
they give up nothing willingly.
Always fighting the season,
conservative, mulish.
I find it easy to admire in trees
what depresses me in people.

~ Marge Piercy

The doughty oaks

Photo credit: photojock from morguefile.com

Oaks don’t drop their leaves
as elms and lindens do.
They evolved no corky layer,
no special tricks.
They shut off the water.
Leaves hang on withering
tougher than leather.
Wind tears them loose.

Slowly they grow, white oaks
under the pitch pines,
tap roots plunging
deep, enormous carrots.
By the marsh they turn
twisting, writhing
aging into lichens, contorted
like the wind solidified.

In the spring how stubborn
how cautious
clutching their wallets tight.
Long after the maples,
the beeches have leafed out
they sleep in their ragged leaves.
Reluctantly in the buzz and hum
they raise velvet
antlers flushed red,
then flash silvery tassels.
At last vaulted
green chambers of summer.

Ponderous, when mature, as elephants,
in the storm they slam castle doors.
They all prepare to be great
grandfathers, in the meantime
dealing in cup and saucer acorns.

When frost crispens the morning,
they give up nothing willingly.
Always fighting the season,
conservative, mulish.
I find it easy to admire in trees
what depresses me in people.

~ Marge Piercy

The Shapes of Leaves

Photo credit: mzacha from morguefile.com

Ginkgo, cottonwood, pin oak, sweet gum, tulip tree:

our emotions resemble leaves and alive

to their shapes we are nourished.

Have you felt the expanse and contours of grief

along the edges of a big Norway maple?

Have you winced at the orange flare

searing the curves of a curling dogwood?

I have seen from the air logged islands,

each with a network of branching gravel roads,

and felt a moment of pure anger, aspen gold.

I have seen sandhill cranes moving in an open field,

a single white whooping crane in the flock.

And I have traveled along the contours

of leaves that have no name. Here

where the air is wet and the light is cool,

I feel what others are thinking and do not speak,

I know pleasure in the veins of a sugar maple,

I am living at the edge of a new leaf.

~ Arthur Sze

_____________________________________________

Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf. ~ Albert Schweitzer 

The Shapes of Leaves

Photo credit: mzacha from morguefile.com

Ginkgo, cottonwood, pin oak, sweet gum, tulip tree:

our emotions resemble leaves and alive

to their shapes we are nourished.

Have you felt the expanse and contours of grief

along the edges of a big Norway maple?

Have you winced at the orange flare

searing the curves of a curling dogwood?

I have seen from the air logged islands,

each with a network of branching gravel roads,

and felt a moment of pure anger, aspen gold.

I have seen sandhill cranes moving in an open field,

a single white whooping crane in the flock.

And I have traveled along the contours

of leaves that have no name. Here

where the air is wet and the light is cool,

I feel what others are thinking and do not speak,

I know pleasure in the veins of a sugar maple,

I am living at the edge of a new leaf.

~ Arthur Sze

_____________________________________________

Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf. ~ Albert Schweitzer