On False Assumptions and the Secret Lives of Trees (and other Species)

Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Please visit the amazing Buffy at Buffy's Blog for Roundup.

So, how's your December so far? Mine has been a little bit lovely, a little bit cold, a little bit delicious. I've been crafting... here is the new fabric garland I made for the tree (to replace the falling-apart garland we've used and loved so well for the past 15 years or so):

Pinking shears and fabric stash and twine.... voila!

I've got a few more projects in the queue, too! LOVE this time of year. Instead of crazy, I get quiet. AND I've been reading more Cybils poetry nominees.

Which brings me to the subject line of this post. Today I want to share a poem from the lovely collection AMAZING PLACES, poems selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins. As some of you know, I am rather fond of travel -- and of persona poems. I love how the tree in this poem views us humans and  how it's quick to set us straight:





Tree Speaks
by Nikki Grimes

Here they come again
those pale, rootless humans
squinting at the far country
where gorge meets sky.
How they gawk at me,
thinking I'm lonely!
Yes, I am one of only
a handful of trees
clinging to these
sun-striped cliffs
branches suspended
over a clear drop
more miles down
than the number of rings
circling my middle.
but lonely?
What do they know?
Daily, I listen to the echo
of the Colorado River rapids
bouncing off red-purple ridges
sculpted by water and time.
Each morning,
I witness the swoop and swirl
of hawks dancing in the air
we share.
Each evening,
I happily offer my limbs
as respite for majestic eagles.
Oh, yes,
this home of mine
stitched to the horizon
is Grand.
I will cling here forever,
waiting to be found
by those lost
in the endless beauty
of the Canyon.

(Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona)

These thoughts on loneliness remind me of a scene in a movie -- of course I can't remember the movie! -- but it was a younger couple watching an older couple in a restaurant. The older couple was sitting there, eating quietly, not talking. The younger man says, I just just don't want to end up like them, with nothing to say to each other anymore. His date says, no, maybe it's that they are so comfortable with one another and know each other so well that they don't need words.

It's all a matter of perspective, isn't it? And who are we, the more observers, to say what's in another person's (or a tree's!) heart? Likely we are wrong about a lot of our assumptions... all the more reason to greet the world with openness and wonder, all eager to learn and imagine.

Today, that's how I want to walk around in the world. Won't you join me?