Tag Archives: redwoods

Poison Oak Fears

Posted on by under poetry

My fears are growing like poison oak
There are phone calls every day
They say “Come Skype with your father,
Though he’s feeling very weak today.”

Video chats with my father
Are the best conversations I’ve had
We don’t talk, we just sit and look at each other
And the love blooms like flowers befween us

My father can no longer hide
How bad he’s feeling
Sometimes parts of his face turn bkue
And as if he has become translucent
The light of eternity shines through him
Sometimes he clearly struggles to breathe
Sometimes the pain jolts through his body
Sometimes he has no energy
To do anything but lie there and look at me
Out of half-closed eyes

We have little need for words now
What can be said has been said
He can read on my face unconditional love
I can read on his body both love and suffering

So we lie in our hospital beds
Thousands of miles away
And we stare at each other and feel the love
As if we were still hiking the ancient forests
He hiked me through as a child

Those forests were filled with love
And so are we as we stare at each other
Each of us falls asleep
He sometimes loses track
But love — the important part —
Still blooms like redwood sorrel
Carpeting the forest floor

But fear grows like poison oak
And I fear that one of these days
The message will no longer be
“Your dad may be well enough
To Skype with you a little today.”
I fear that instead it will be
“Take your dexamethasone right now
Because your father passed away.”

Will I cry?
Will I go numb?
Will I be enraged?
Will I throw myself into projects?
Will I become unable to function?.
Will I be able to be there for grieving relatives?

One thing I know
No matter what shows on my face
My tears will outnumber
The drops of rain
In a redwood forest in winter

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Redwoods

Posted on by under poetry, Writing prompts

A tiny seed of redwood sorrel, slumbering in its soil nest
Stones in its lowest spots say to grow upward
Silent hope for something sorrel can’t explain
Stirrings that see it slip from the soil, seeking sun
Sun on the leaves sweet sugar within
Sorrel is social, surrounded by sorrel-friends
Redwood sorrel seeks solely to live in the light
Supported by soil, the sun in the sky shining down

[Writing prompt – redwoods – provided by binghsien.]

Awe

Posted on by under poetry

Awe is where wonder and fear collide
And we stare out to the stars meeting the sea
And we wonder is there a place in this world for me

Awe is where my heart turns into a stone
A living, pulsating stone of many colors
That move out of the way to make room for each other

Awe is where the stones meet the ocean
In caves that took millions of years to erode
And my body tells me this is your second home

Water and earth can mean so many things
The soil of the redwood rainforests
The stone caves carved by water seeking the sea
The river rocks with holes all through them
The monsoon season in the desert rocks
The rivers carving canyons
The tiny creeks wetting tiny amounts of soil
The springs of water flowing out from in between the rocks
Waterfalls crashing down with caves behind them

And all of these things are sacred to me
And all of these things are part of me
But the one that means the most
Will always be the soil in the redwoods

Awe is where wonder and fear collide
I am where earth and water unite
I am in awe of the collision
I am in awe of you and of me
We are made of the stuff of the earth
We are made of the stuff of the water
I have only to look at you
To see a metallic daughter
With the earth kept tight inside
Like a vessel full to bursting
And I have only to look at myself
To see moistened soil from the forest floor
And I could see even more
The plants that grow, wither, and die
And decay to become part of me
The wind with a sigh brings down
Dead redwood needles and cones

And it doesn’t matter where you go
Or who you are
You have only to look at the ground
Below your feet
Or up at the stars
The clouds roll overhead
A thunderclap hits a little too close
And that beauty and awe is back
But you’d better run home

Return to sender: no longer at this address

Posted on by under poetry

My mother is a wizard with plants
I kind of knew it already
But when my father was upset
Because he'd never see the morning glories
Bloom again in his life
My mother secretly coaxed
A morning glory vine
Out of season
To bloom, and climb, to bloom, and climb
And she took him outside
To show him the magic she'd done
And that's how much my mother loves my dad

My flowers are my poetry
I coax the words to bloom and grow
And climb and climb into his heart
Even out of season
I use words to express the wordless
And that's one kind of magic I have
And that's how much I love my dad

But one of these days
I'm going to write a poem
It will be full of obscure mountain lakes
And treks across the mountains to the sea
And forest floors that were so much more
And owls hooting up in the trees
It will show him every place
That I could feel his love
Without the emotional bombardment
Of living in the city

And it will be a perfect poem
For that time and that place
It will certainly be better than this one
It will show him that I care for him
(As if he doesn't know by now)
It will show the depth of love
That death can dredge up when you're lucky

And then i will get a phone call or an email
It will start out:
“Go and take your dexamethasone right now.”
And I'll have a sinking feeling
But I'll take the syringe of steroids
And put it in my feeding tube
Then go back to the phone or the computer

Then they'll say
“The news is bad
Your father has passed away
He was far too tired this morning
To check your blog today.”

And all that's left of my magic
Will be words on a screen
Words he may have understood
But will never hope to read

From that point on forwards
We'll be separated by time
We both will have existed
But from that point in time onwards
I will be here and he won't

I wonder how much dexamethasone it takes
To avoid adrenal crisis when your dad dies
I wonder how much magical love it takes
To stand the pain you feel when you realize

That you will never talk to him again
You'll never hug him again
You'll never sit next to each other
With an elderly cat spread across your laps
You'll never ask the questions
You forgot to ask when he was alive
You'll never play with his beard again
And there's so little time
There's so little time

But I'm wrong
Like people are often wrong about time
Eternity is all around us
That's all the time in the world
Eternity is where love exists
Outside of time and space
So even if he never reads my best poems
He'll feel the love that went into them
Just as he feels the love
From that morning glory vine

He feels the love from his two pet dogs
He feels the love from his wife
He feels the love from his three adult children
He says he's lucky to be surrounded
By so much love

So I'm terribly sorry, Ron
If some of my poems don't reach you in time
And i'm terribly sorry Ron
If I try to Skype you and it turns out you're gone
Just know I love you more
Than even the best poet can convey
I love you more than I could ever say

And love is the magic that made my mom
Able to grow those morning glories
And love is the magic that makes me able
To write poems daily after years of dormancy
And love is the magic that connects you to me
It's the way we can feel each other's love
Without any form of contact at all

I hope the place I built for you outside of time
And filled to overflowing with my love
Will see you through

And I hope that I'll continue
Writing poetry to you
Long after you've gone

And I hope it reaches you in Eternity
Or wherever it is you're going

And I hope that even the worst of it
Conveys this message:

I love you
I love you
I love you