More About Those Poor Trees

Don't be put off by my despair - as I go from place to place, I keep seeing more trees that likely are dead. The optimist in me wants to say that perhaps they will be revived when spring comes.

There is a Japanese poetic form called the haibun. For example, Gary Snyder makes good use of the form.

A haibun consists of a paragraph followed by a haiku. The two relate to each other - but not directly. The form seemed a good way to explore my feelings further. I took a little liberty with the form - writing three paragraphs and using the same haiku three times.

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                     Dry leaves hang on branches. Dead trees masquerading as autumn-arriving-early.

                    The rain has forgotten to come as weeks go by, dry as the leaves that have lost

                    their meaning in life. The Arctic sea ice continues melting while politicians argue

                    about who is to blame for the economy and gas prices. As though they were

                    sealed away from reality.

weep for our lost earth

may your tears water our souls

as we mourn dead trees

                     Once I heard spiritual-dislocation described as being oblivious. The not-noticing

                     of a breeze through pine trees, the hint of changing seasons as the nights turn cool,

                     geese practicing their formations before heading south. Until one day we wake up 

                     and notice. The dead leaves hanging from lifeless trees.

weep for our lost earth

may your tears water our souls

as we mourn dead trees

                      I know there can be no new life without death. I figured that out as a child when

                      I thought about what it would be like if nothing died. And that nothing is not the

                      predecessor of birth. Winter is the first season, not the last - the time when new

                      cubs are born in dark caves, whales migrate to give birth, volcanoes seethe, seeds

                      die in order to be transformed. But these dead trees - perhaps their purpose now

                      is to dramatize the damage we have wrought upon this blue orb moving through

                      darkness. Moving us to pray that we do not create one more dead planet.

weep for our lost earth

may your tears water our souls

as we mourn dead trees