Trees Against The Sky

On National Poetry Day, a poem about trees and nature

Trees Against The Sky

Edge of Wood in Cumbria

Pines against the sky,

Pluming the purple hill;

Pines . . . and I wonder why,

Heart, you quicken and thrill?

Wistful heart of a boy,

Fill with a strange sweet joy,

Lifting to Heaven nigh -

Pines against the sky.

Palms against the sky,

Failing the hot, hard blue;

Stark on the beach I lie,

Dreaming horizons new;

Heart of my youth elate,

Scorning a humdrum fate,

Keyed to adventure high -

Palms against the sky.

Oaks against the sky,

Ramparts of leaves high-hurled,

Staunch to stand and defy

All the winds of the world;

Stalwart and proud and free,

Firing the man in me

To try and again to try -

Oaks against the sky.

Olives against the sky

Of evening, limpidly bright;

Tranquil and soft and shy,

Dreaming in amber light;

Breathing the peace of life,

Ease after toil and strife . . .

Hark to their silver sigh!

Olives against the sky.

Cypresses glooming the sky,

Stark at the end of the road;

Failing and faint am I,

Lief to be eased of my load;

There where the stones peer white

in the last of the silvery light,

Quiet and cold I'll lie -

Cypresses etching the sky.

Trees, trees against the sky -

O I have loved them well!

There are pleasures you cannot buy,

Treasurers you cannot sell,

And not the smallest of these

Is the gift and glory of trees. . . .

So I gaze and I know now why

It is good to live - and to die. . . .

Trees and the Infinite Sky.

 Robert William Service (1874-1958)

Happiness is....

      "The more childish and unworldly a person’s disposition is, the more happiness he gets from such simple things as air, water, sun, earth-mould, sand, leaves, bread, butter, honey, or the still more primeval sensation of a certain delicious drowsiness in his own limbs.  

This is what I mean by my recurrent image of the ichthyosaurus. What I am trying to indicate by “the ichthyosaurus-sensation” is nothing less than this simple primeval happiness in the immediate experience of being alive. 

To blink at that mysterious god, the sun; to stare at that equivocal goddess, the moon ; to watch the incredible shapes of the clouds, as they pile up above the horizon ; to observe in early afternoon, a certain yellowish light upon a brick wall; to note a certain dark-blue wave of colour, as it sinks down upon the roofs of a city after sunset; to catch the ink- black silhouettes of bare branches against a November sky, just before the windows are lamp-lit in a roadside village ; to feel the ploughed-up earth under your feet, and a cold wet wind upon your face ; to sit over a fire of wood or of red, coals, thinking the long thoughts of vague race-memories—all these things, belonging to a world of psychic-physical sensations that go back to the beginnings of consciousness, are the stuff of which the secret of life is made."

John Cowper Powys

In Defense of Sensuality

NOVEMBER SUNSET

"We had a remarkable sunset one day last November. I was walking in a meadow the source of a small brook, when the sun at last, just before setting, after a cold grey day, reached a clear stratum in the horizon, and the softest brightest morning sun-light fell on the dry grass and on the stems of the trees in the opposite horizon, and on the leaves of the shrub-oaks on the hill-side, while our shadows stretched long over the meadow eastward, as if we were the only motes in its beams. It was such a light as we could not have imagined a moment before, and the air also was so warm and serene that nothing was wanting to make a paradise of that meadow. When we reflected that this was not a solitary phenomenon, never to happen again, but that it would happen forever and ever an infinite number of evenings, and cheer and reassure the latest child that walked there, it was more glorious still. 

The sun sets on some retired meadow, where no house is visible, with all the glory and splendor that it lavishes on cities, and perchance, as it has never set before, — where there is but a solitary marsh hawk to have his wings guilded by it, or only a musquash looks out from his cabin, and there is some little black-veined brook in the midst of the marsh, just beginning to meander, winding slowly round a decaying stump. We walked in so pure and bright a light, gilding the withered grass and leaves, so softly and serenely bright — I thought I had never bathed in such a golden flood, without a ripple or a murmur to it. The west side of every wood and rising ground gleamed like the boundary of elysium, and the sun on our backs seemed like a gentle herdsman, driving us home at evening."         
 
                                                                                                                      (Henry David Thoreau)

Life as Adventure

“I'd like to repeat the advice that I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.

If you want to get more out of life, Ron, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty. And so, Ron, in short, get out of Salton City and hit the Road. I guarantee you will be very glad you did. But I fear that you will ignore my advice. You think that I am stubborn, but you are even more stubborn than me. You had a wonderful chance on your drive back to see one of the greatest sights on earth, the Grand Canyon, something every American should see at least once in his life. But for some reason incomprehensible to me you wanted nothing but to bolt for home as quickly as possible, right back to the same situation which you see day after day after day. I fear you will follow this same inclination in the future and thus fail to discover all the wonderful things that God has placed around us to discover.

Don't settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon. You are still going to live a long time, Ron, and it would be a shame if you did not take the opportunity to revolutionize your life and move into an entirely new realm of experience.

You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living.

My point is that you do not need me or anyone else around to bring this new kind of light in your life. It is simply waiting out there for you to grasp it, and all you have to do is reach for it. The only person you are fighting is yourself and your stubbornness to engage in new circumstances.”
 

Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

December Sunrise

(Photo - Wikimedia Commons)

I watched the sun rise this morning, and I do not have the words to convey what I saw.  The adjectives, descriptive terms and analogies ran through my mind but not one can do justice to what I witnessed.  I cannot draw or paint to show you the beauty of the morning so I must use words, however inadequate, to describe the scene.

At first, a sea of pinks and purples ran across the dark sky and a red glow appeared along the horizon.  This grew in intensity and burnt orange-red, upwards and outwards, until looking at the sky in the east was like looking into a burning fire.  The sun peeped over the hill, bright gold, against the flaming backdrop.

I moved cross the bedroom to get a better view and saw the sun behind a line of silhouetted trees. It climbed higher in the sky between the two extended main branches of an oak and appeared as though it was enveloped and nestled by the limbs of the tree.  I wondered how many years the mature oak has stood in that spot and the number of times the rising sun cast its light on it. The thought struck me that no matter how long I live, I will never see as many sunrises as the oak tree.  

From the moment I stopped to look at the sky, the ‘to do’ list had tugged at my conscience like an impatient child tugs on its parent’s hand.  Now, I dismissed it from my mind and continued looking out the window.  Yes, there are things to do and places to be but I have only a limited number of sunrises that I can watch, finite opportunities to drink in the beauty and timelessness of nature.  I didn’t waste time this morning nor was I idling; I was living - truly living, if only for a few moments before the mundane took over.