{"id":374,"date":"2009-11-30T17:21:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-01T01:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ecopsychology.org\/gatherings\/?p=374"},"modified":"2011-10-01T18:10:04","modified_gmt":"2011-10-02T01:10:04","slug":"tending-to-trees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ecopsychology.org\/gatherings\/tending-to-trees\/","title":{"rendered":"Tending to Trees"},"content":{"rendered":"

a poem by Mary Sokol, PhD<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Newly arrived,
\nthis Spring day and I
\nto this place.
\nI,
\nwalking the perimeter
\nexploring color and texture,
\nof land,
\nground,
\nforest.
\nWoods reveal
\nthemselves
\nto me,
\nwoods,
\nframe in
\nmy land
\nframe
\nmy home,
\nwoods defining me.
\nLooking up
\nbranches touch sky
\ngreen to blue, grey to white.
\nLooking into perimeter.
\nI try
\nto comprehend<\/p>\n

try
\nto know intimately
\nshapes
\nand better acquaint
\nmyself
\nwith hue and life
\nthings
\nhere and new.
\nThen
\nI see and smile in surprised recognition
\nthe familiar\u2026
\nclusters of barely grapes
\npurple, deep and drying
\nfalling in clusters from trees,
\nleaves green and yellow both,
\nshape and size and color
\nthe same\u2026
\nGrapes, yes,
\nold friends of lore
\nof allegory, of scripture, or travel, of
\nparable of fable\u2026
\nGrapes of life and joy, renewal
\nHere now in my home.
\nBut\u2026 pause\u2026
\nThese though are different
\nsomehow\u2026
\nA question\u2026a puzzle\u2026<\/p>\n

These,
\nseem less
\nlike those I knew
\nfull and alive;
\nThose of memory
\nwere
\nin rows ,
\nsecured and tidy,
\nkept by some vintner
\nfor a table of warmth and love and friendship
\nto mark as sacred time\u2019s passages.
\nThese here
\nnow
\nare
\nwild and untended
\nstrange.
\nThese, here,now
\nI
\nmis-thought were
\nTreasures
\nGifts
\nVolunteers
\nfor a this same table of memory\u2019s\u00a0 joy.
\nGifts free
\nfor me. I
\nmis-understood.
\nSmiling, first
\nin false recognition
\nUnknowingly
\nI
\nthought my-self
\na free receiver of plenty.
\nNew to these woods,
\nnow,
\nawakening
\nmy neck is strained looking
\nupward
\ntoward sky,
\nmy head tilts to treetops,
\ntaking in a vast array
\nof twining vines
\nall.
\nSlowly and in humbled quake
\nI seek to Comprehend
\nand what is before me\u2026
\nan unending weave
\nof knots,
\ngrape vines ,
\nupon vines,
\nupon vines,
\nupon vines,
\nupon vines,
\nendless tangle.
\nUnderstanding more,
\nIt is revealed to me
\nthat these grapes
\nand
\ntheir harvest are not gifts.
\nWhat I know of grapes
\nfalls
\nand is lost.
\nI am left vanquished.
\nAmicable allegories abate.
\nWhat was seemingly treasure,
\nstrangles.
\nThese vines untended
\nforce life to bend
\nin crippled stance
\ngasping, choking.
\nVine after
\nvine
\nafter vine,
\nsmall tentacles
\nwinding
\ntheir way
\naround
\nbranches and trunks
\nsmall and large
\nalike
\nold and new growth,
\nweaving in and out
\nsparing
\nnone-
\nAll are seemingly
\ntaken.
\nThen,
\na bending,
\nbreaking
\nquaking Aspen
\nstretches
\nand
\nin a contorted arabesque
\nof survival
\nit meanders
\nout of place
\nstill
\nreaching for sky
\nin between pressured vines
\nholding it
\ncaptive.
\nI
\nsquint to see meaning
\nnow blurred
\nas is sky.
\nI recognize now,
\nthese are not yet my woods.
\nThey belong
\nto these
\nothers
\nnow,
\nstrangers,
\ninterlopers,
\nvines
\nwho have taken
\nan untended, wild forest
\nHere
\npowerful and deadly
\ncrushing life
\nwithin
\nmaking all life
\nhere, theirs
\nforcing submission
\nunder
\ntheir weight,
\nwith their years of climbing
\nup
\nand into
\nand around,
\nsuffocating.
\nI Realize
\nI must
\nearn and free
\nthis land
\nto know it, to help
\nit
\nreveal itself
\nfor its own purpose.
\nFrom this new view, meandering still,
\nI become
\nworker,
\nI take stock of a new vision of these woods
\nand I wonder
\nWhat does it need to return?
\nI Listen.
\nI Stretch.
\nI Climb.
\nI Reach.
\nI Gather my bended self
\nand tools
\nshapes and sizes all-
\na saw, a blade, clippers, poles, a ladder,
\na rock upon which to stand, for a moment,
\nsome twine.
\nTogether,
\nwe free the small
\nthen the large.
\nWe cut down the vines,
\ncut them close to earth, cut them
\nembedded
\nfrom branches and trunks
\nso hard to undo
\nlike wrapping and ribbon.
\nThen
\nI feel,
\nthe earth shakes and trembles,
\ntops spring
\nback toward sky
\nI watch
\nand vines
\nfall and cascade down;
\nStill a worker,
\nI pull
\nand pull
\nand pull,
\nmore
\ngathering of myself, of them,
\nas I can,
\nturning, unwinding, freeing;
\neffort upon effort
\nVines now down from heights
\nfallen low;
\nI must shield my eyes from
\nthe showering
\nof dust, dirt, bits of branch and vine both-
\nfalling down.
\nSo much is released.
\nThen,
\nI hear Silence
\nand open my eyes and See.
\nFinally,
\nthe
\ntallest
\nvine
\nfalls.
\nI feel the trees freed,
\none
\nand then another.
\nI take stock newly now-
\nI sigh
\nrelief fills my heart, my lungs, my soul,
\nI Breathe.
\nI View
\nthe broken and bending wood,
\nvines severed and covering ground
\nbranches moving, finally, toward sky,
\nslowly, quaking,all-
\nmaking their way back\u2026
\nnot quite,
\nyet there,
\nbut sometime
\nsoon or later,
\nperhaps when they will.
\nI Hope.
\nThankful.
\nAlive.
\nI make my way back
\nup the edge,
\nthe woods,
\nthe perimeter,
\nKnowing
\nbetter this land,
\nIntimately,
\nNewly released and free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

a poem by Mary Sokol, PhD Newly arrived, this Spring day and I to this place. I, walking …Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[144,143,142,89],"class_list":["post-374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-and-prose","tag-intimacy","tag-land","tag-mary-sokol","tag-trees"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4azYr-62","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecopsychology.org\/gatherings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecopsychology.org\/gatherings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecopsychology.org\/gatherings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecopsychology.org\/gatherings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecopsychology.org\/gatherings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecopsychology.org\/gatherings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":377,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecopsychology.org\/gatherings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions\/377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecopsychology.org\/gatherings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecopsychology.org\/gatherings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecopsychology.org\/gatherings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}