Limbo or Transformation?

River Tree

I love this season of the  transformation of trees.  They go through remarkable changes.  This picture of River Tree (I have named her that) reminds me of the transformation and how unpredictable is the unfolding of things.   River Tree could be described as the offshoot of a tree long gone, that has grown over the creek, and looks most days as if it is about to fall in the water.  But never does.  Some limbs are leafy.  Some bare.  The trunk has shoots growing straight up--suckers are what tree people call them.  Usually they get trimmed off.  But not with River Tree.  She is this wild mix of limbs and shoots and sprouts.  Hanging out over the water.  Yet how powerful, how spectacular the effect of the light of sunset last night on this tree (however you want to think about the Light as a metaphor in our lives...).

Last week I was thinking of the unpredictable as "being in limbo.". But this week, it seems to me it is more about natural processes unfolding over time.   Transformation over time.  In ways we are not in charge of.  

A few days ago, we were out kayaking in the nearby creek, and the first line of a poem kept circling around and around in my head.  Two and a half hours of paddling--with these words circling.  When we got back home and I put pen to paper, after the first line, came the rest of the poem.  It too is about trees, over time.  A friend said it seemed sad, and about loss.  Funny but I have felt it is hopeful and optimistic.  It certainly is about life here on the creek. Hope you enjoy it. 

LEGACY

Trees fall

And change

The course

Of rivers--

Some trees,

Still strong

Downed by

A storm--

Others long dead

In human terms--

Have stood as

Habitat for

Nesting osprey,

Eagles, and

Then stand

No more,

Fallen across

A stream--

They now collect

What winds and tides

Can offer,

Shaping a course

For water

Flowing round them--

All that

Long after

Youthful green buds 

Come no more--

All that after

The beauty

And the spareness

Of bare limbs. 

Judy Brown April 17, 2016

This tiny poem showed up this morning--a post script to legacy.

Long after
The time
A tree
Seems most
In its prime,
It is in
Unforeseen ways
Shaping things
In partnership
With earth
And nature's
Processes
Still part of
An unfolding
Possibility.

Judy Brown April 21, 2016