Of what we vines are most afraid

Tendrils twisting up limbless trees,
Our season's growth holds on to
Our dead, expressionless companions,
Rootless, yet sturdy,
Pushed deep into the soil.
Who knows of their silent aspirations
To spread a branch, some leaves?
Carrying our fruiting lineage
We emulate their staked-out intervals
And cling for support, since we need you.

Do you look upon us with envy?
Our leaves cast great shadows
That our companions could only dream of.
Reaching out along a trail
We've spent years mastering.
Contorting our trunks into shapes
That are not straight or rigid
But as if to say, ''We're alive, we're alive
Admire the fruits of our labour''

It consumes all our strength
To divulge this wisdom
And each year we are cut back to conserve our energy.
Each year is our new beginning
Until one year we shall be cut back completely
When we are no longer yielding
And become, like you,
Unyielding.


from An ear to the earth, V

A tree contemplates its own mortality

It was like,
How shall I put it?
Like the first lightening strike
Or the moment a storm cloud bursts?
No, much closer.

The first swing of an axe
Sending a convulsion,
An electrical charge
Through the forest floor
Through every fibre.

How can you prepare
For the as yet unknown?

And when a light space opened up
Touching the forest floor,
Where the shady things grow,
I knew then
That there would be no rest.

An ear to the earth, X


.

How the leaves learnt to speak

It is the wind
that gives us

our voices we
chattering leaves

are full of whispers
sighing , breathing

leaving the forest
ripe with rumours

as we collectively
exhale.



An ear to the earth
IX

The secret in the soil

What goes on up there above in the light
space we have no names for or know
what shape such seeds take on where
our skin is exposed to all the elements
suffering every condition yet we give
seeds life but are not life itself me we
us soil and the seeds that seek shelter
all manner of things have grown here
in the dark in the turmoil of our acidity
and alkali seeds in stony layers
between which roots thrust their searching tips
prising and worming deep into our soul
and where only the drip
drip of liquids
penetrates deeper and deeper still.

.

An ear to the earth, VIII