Tree Fall
Posted on | March 31, 2012 | 6 Comments
An old trail leads from our house up to a waterfall in the woods on Wolfpen Mountain. Twinned basswood trees — also known as lime, linden or linn trees — stand near the trail, perhaps a century old. The basswood is a soft wood prized by woodcarvers. Two weeks ago one of them fell after a long slow decline. Its final years evoked many themes from our own lives and our bonds with the earthly life around and within us.
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Last night the basswood fell
clean across the trail to the waterfall …..
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6 Responses to “Tree Fall”
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William J. Everett
In my teaching career I authored eight books and numerous articles in social ethics and religion. After over thirty years of academic work — in Germany, India, and South Africa as well as in the United States — I wanted to turn my hand to a poetically written novel to probe the issues of ecological and human reconciliation.
When I am not writing, I create furniture for worship settings. For more about my work, go to www.WisdomsTable.net, where you will also find galleries of artwork by my wife Sylvia, whose ancestors were the original inspiration for Red Clay, Blood River. READ MORE...
TURNINGS: Poems of Transformation
Like works in
wood upon a lathe, these poems are word-turnings that reveal the inner grain of our human experience. They are bowls to catch our turnings of memory, conversion, falling in love, and passing through our seasons and the wrenching turns that mark our lives. Above all these turnings are a shout of praise, a murmur of wonder, a turning away from life as usual, a merciful re-turning to the songs, images and stories that move our lives.
You can get TURNINGS at:
For More on TURNINGS:
Red Clay Blood River
Red Clay, Blood River is a story told by Earth about two brothers from Germany and an enslaved South African woman whose lives bind together America’s “Trail of Tears” and South Africa’s simultaneous “Great Trek” of 1838. You can get Red Clay, Blood River at:
Booklocker--also in ebook version (PDF)In South Africa at: www.Loot.co.za and www.Kalahari.net
March 31st, 2012 @ 11:02 am
Thanks, Bill, for “taking us along” in your poem, making us feel we are there on the side of the mountain with you.
Ken
March 31st, 2012 @ 11:13 am
Hi, Bill, I’ve been there! At least on that secret trail and would not have known of it without your showing me.
The end of you poem is almost Ovidian, a transformation that reminded me strongly of some of the imagery in Ovid’s Metamorphoses!
Today is my birthday and this lovely poem arrived over my iPad desk to remind me of a happy time in the woods looking at that waterfall! Cheers! Pippa
April 3rd, 2012 @ 4:43 pm
From the earth we come, grow, and return. Our mother, first and always. Thanks, Bill, for a delicious slice of nature for the soul.
Tim Bachmeyer
April 3rd, 2012 @ 8:10 pm
Thanks, Tim. I guess young lovers could resonate with the embrace of these trees, but it’s the wisdom years that yield a poem like this, I think. I’ve cleared the trail to the waterfall now. Back to the waters and the branch lettuce that grows around it.
April 4th, 2012 @ 12:05 pm
Bill,
You desription of both tree and trail recalled a vivid memory of walking to the falls. Your capacity to retrieve images creates fondness for mother nature and her wonderful affect on our lives.
Thanks for sharing these moments.
April 6th, 2012 @ 10:12 pm
Bill;
I agree with your other friends comments about how you are so adept at ‘capturing’ the messages Nature has to offer. I have to wonder though, if you have captured Nature or has she captured you?
Happy Easter my friend.
Steve