Choosing one, it would have to be the beech tree at my elementary school. Humongous limbs branching out low enough for a first grader to make a start. Branches wide enough to lie down on and take a nap. At 200 years old, an ancient beast in our linear time scheme, but a mere adolescent next to the Bristle Cones or Redwoods that understand the world after thousands of years. That’s what I want – the kind of knowledge that makes you fearless. A kind of fearlessness that manifests as acceptance as the tiniest creatures overcome you. And to welcome them —the woodpecker’s knock, carpenter ants, the larvae’s lunch. Aphids amassing by the thousands. And the final fall—trunk and branches cracking, plummeting through yet other trunks, branches, twigs, and coming to rest among the leaves and litter of the forest. Come spring, new life sprouts along the tree’s body in the kind-of straight line we’d try to make in elementary school.
wood a very rare / substance in the universe / requires life to exist
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Joan White’s poems have been published in Cider Press Review, NPR’s On Being blog, Abstract Magazine, and Burningword Literary Journal, among others. A practicing Zen Buddhist for more than thirty years, she is a student at the Vermont Zen Center where she edits the publication, Walking Mountains, and offers seasonal workshops in haiku. She draws inspiration for her poetry from working in the garden, wandering in the woods and wetlands, and reading about space/time. Joan holds an MS in Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; her thesis was published in the Journal of Alternative Agriculture.
