The Trees of OUR LORD (Phoema)

This experimental "ditty" (2001) is really something of a journal in verse, fashioned over several weeks as I responded to the winter weather in our midst. We lived in a log cabin at the time.

January:

I will sing a song to Jesu
for the inking of the trees,
Oh, how I love these stern lines
and cracks,
the whacked out 2-D form and split--
and the spitting in the wind

January’s eves
are those of brush and bone
brittle fingers, vapor trails, careening thread—

Oh come Jehovah, 

join with me and see
the bendy bold highways and the unraveled ropes,
stamping the red
with Jackson Pollock paintings without frame.

The trees of the Lord are brain stems
with the ganglia adrift,
un-bundled dendrites in backboneless backs
neurotic neurons with synapse -- scared stiff.


The trees of our Lord
are a horde
of Man-of-war jelly fish standing on their heads --
heads buried in the sand.



The trees of our lord are feather-duster darts
plunged vertigo into
the target of the earth.

The trees of Lord
are a mob of squid, arrayed
like bad-mitten birdies
smacking the earth.

The trees of the Lord are skaters, frozen on their toes
Exploding arms and dreadful locks
locked in stable frenzy.

The trees of our Lord
are a racquet
a packet of feather and caw
Stereo sparrow with crow on the go:
a Squawkity cacophony in half lit skies
thrash-talking lovers in half lit ears.
a fading away as I wake.

The trees of our Lord rise spangled
in the flame of a billions suns
diadem antlers—dipped in glitter
inky black rivers dipped in spark.

In the black-hole universe
(where everything is inside out)
The trees of our Lord
are Christmas trees – hung
upon the lights.

The trees of our Lord
are dotted-line trees
half erased
in a powder keg world of donut and starch
with smidgens of dark-chocolate bark parts between confection

The trees of our Lord be slow-motion lightening
missing the light, and dense
(and covered in bark)


Feb 5 (the day after)


The trees of our Lord be ladies
in a high court walk,
a promenade of step and stop
with ever graceful wave

The trees of the Lord be dippin’

in a buildin’ Irish reel

now and then a head toss,

now and then …all still.

The trees of Lord be Shakers

in the hula blaze of light,

They be shakin’ in the spirit

of starless starless night

The trees of our Lord be bushman

in a slam dance of face

Punk-rocking scarecrows

in a pneumatic race …

fingers, slappin’ fingers,

elbows to the mouth.

bedlam, and banshee and glorious cracks—

kneecaps and knuckles

and

pinkies

in sacks.

The trees of the Lord

be languid, like lightening on the ground

crazy shaped fuel cells

waiting to be found

and burned.

The trees of our Lord be African-

American

dressed in bridal white

ebony and ivory

liquorish and light-

A living Ansel Adams

a living Swan Ballet

a sugar powder post card

a fragile minuet

The trees of Lord be almost gone

like swans in lakes of milk

like lily-white women in wraps of silk--

Like laughin’ albino Polar bears at the great white sand dunes national monument eating Uncle Ben’s five minute rice, or

Hunters dressed in camouflage

hunting Moby Dick.

The trees of our Lord be ugly – not so much for what they are

but because of what they were

Yesterday a universe turned inside out

Blazing white night with coal black stars, constellations made of twigs.

Today

grey.

--

Today Mud.

--

Feb 10 goose down again.

The world be blinkn’

First be grey, then be white

then be grey

then be white

then be drip-drip drip-drip drip-drip-drip

then be whey

then be white, but solid-wet (like curd)

then be zig-zag mud with remnant of snowmen.

-

The trees of our Lord

be icebergs

tossed on the Terra sea.

(Note I didn't have any pictures of trees floating ina way that we can see their roots, so this will have to do.)

To all who see through sod

like air

the trees of our lord

are a winsome pair:

doppelganger henchmen

joined at the feet

One reaching sunward,

the other -- to heat.

To all the stone-folk who wade

through coal dust and diamonds

The trees of our Lord be backward

dangling in air –

and all the mud moths and dirt birds

rock bones and earth worms

worry

that they do not punch through the fragile skin of sod

to the center of the sun.

The pines of our Lord

are full of lines,

the weeds of our Lord

are full of form

the bees of our Lord

are full of sting

the Kirk of our Lord

is full of sing.

The trees of our Lord.
are tapestries
knit of wind and sod,
solar thread and H2O
and
THE intelligence of God.
Wisdom in the chlorophyll
wisdom in the dirt
wisdom in the brainless seeds
wisdom in the blurt--
or roaring light.
wisdom in the molecules--
of water and of bark
wisdom in the micro mist
that knows how to part
to its appointed place.