Author: LFSAlden

Can a tree be a poem?
I think that tree right there is a poem
and I will try to tell you about it:

Yellow, so yellow, the sun at sunset, so rich that it shifts toward orange
with stark, dark limbs
which reach eastward toward the gap between the sister-trees
which reach toward the pale yellow-green and the orange and the red and the pine and the nearly black hemlock
as though declaiming.

Can a tree be a poet?
I think that tree right there is a poet
and I will try to translate for you:

Sweet rain,
Dark, soft earth,
Sun, sun, sun,
Dance with me, sisters,
in the breeze.

I should write about NCOD and wish everyone luck.
Yes, much luck to you and bon courage!

Also, the stars are lovely this morning, clear as a bell.

Yet… the dog got sprayed by a mink, so here is today’s poem:

Mink
Stink.

Dripping from leaves.

Today I am fallen-on-my-knees grateful to live in the woods.

They welcomed me.

Total strangers (but then some became familiar), total strangers gathered to share words. What an absolute delight.

Thanks, Words!

The sky was full of pale, pale amethysts this morning when I stepped out.
They had been ground fine enough to hang in the clouds, no more massive than a bit of water vapor,
casting purple – or the hint of purple – across the sky and my eye and the day.

That was lovely.
Here’s to a lovely thing this morning.

It is a beautiful frost!
There must have been another one because I found ice, but I think I slept through the sparkle –

Now it is white fairy touch on gold-bronze mortal autumn.

Is it today?

The dogs and I walked in a world of black and white and grey and it was magnificent!
Familiar things in an elegant mode.

It’s October and the First Frost (not Robert, older) will come soon.
I don’t think it was last night, there lay no sign on the grasses this morning.

But soon.

Things are still blooming in the meadow – hardy things, whose names I do not know.
One of them called to me – a tall-ish stalk that split into three long-ish stems the top halves of which bore little flowers like starbursts along the length – in the manner of lupines or delphinia but in miniature, do you see?

Of course in the dawnlight, these flowers were grey or white and could have been any color paler than grass.

This morning I fell under the enchantment of a fairy-wand plant, emitting starbursts, growing in threes all the better to do magic.

Why is it hard?
I get it, leaving cozy blankets and pillows and house is hard,
but the reward is fresh and deer tracks and mist on my face
and happy dogs.

I’ll keep trying, that I promise.

Though you break your vows a thousand times, come yet again, come.

~ Rumi

Marvellous, fantastical, otherworldly mist this morning
I breathe.
As deeply as I can.

Moist and magic heal nose, mouth, throat, lungs, blood, muscle, sinew, bone.

Grey, grey, my beautiful grey lifts up gold and bronze and orange and salmon and red and just-over-the-line-unbelieveable-red-that-makes-me-think-of-purple. What color is that, that shade of red? The color of the tupelo leaves?

Grey, grey, my beautiful grey lifts these up and reveals their numen.

The leaves are dripping onto each other wetly, but I wonder if they are telling a fib.

The sky is so clear and the stars are so sharp and the air is so crisp that I could embroider on silk with this morning.
Orion, Big Dog, Little Dog right there above me, clear, clear, clear sky limned with dawnlight.

Wait.

First, have I told my dogs about those dogs?? We might need Dog Storytime tonight – it’s Friday!

But second, he has two dogs, Big and Little – I have two dogs, Big and Small. In Orion can I see my reflection? Even in part?

It’s the Dark of the Moon, and Things Happen during the dark of the moon, ye ken well what I mean.

Very well, then. When the Hunter Moon rises fresh, I will learn, study, read, write, follow, discern, listen to the lessons of the Hunter in the sky. My goodness.

Something very, very woofable was out there this morning.

We walked particularly early, particularly briefly, because the mundane world somehow filled up our Thursday.
Ridiculous world.

But, world aside, something very, very woofable needed woofing.
I must admit that I am not terribly convinced of the rightness of that statement, as Big Dog went two ways and Small Dog went two other ways with their sure and certain woofings.

If they didn’t know where it was… then… was it there?

Perhaps it was A General Woofing, Such As Might Demonstrate the Qualifications of the Woofers.

Here nor there, it was too damned early to be woofing and the Samoyeds next door answered, possibly waking my dear neighbor; then the collection of dogs across the street chimed in, possibly waking those dear neighbors.

I am truly sorry that you were wakened.
I think that they woofed for no reason, because that amount of woofing usually means “Deer in the meadow!” and we heard no retreating hoofbeats.

To paraphrase a wonderful writer, “This dog comes equipped with a woof.”