"I don’t know why I wrote all this, by the oak. I know that it frames, with the wind, an awareness of gratitude..."

I

This morning I wrote a poem to this oak, an ancient, gnarled tree that has framed the wind for who knows how many centuries, for who knows how many seasons, for who knows how many generations of people and animals, of birth, of life, of change, of death, of rebirth. I don’t know why I wrote that poem – I know that I was tired, this morning, but that I felt good, because I was resting my body and my mind, by the oak that frames the wind between its forked branches.

II

December and January were months of creation dashing, gusting. Now, February is entering its second week with a quieter pace. Creation goes on, but it goes on with a hushed flow, like a fountain in the most secluded corner of a secluded garden. A dark green garden, scented of lichen and hazy to perceptions, not quite like a dream but rather like the aftermath of many dreams, slowly filtered through opening eyelids.

III

There are moments when I despair of mankind. Moments that bleed, like torn limbs, moments that burn in the throat, like the acrid taste of a burning world. Moments of killing and spitting the ashes of a time that doesn’t clot, because an absence of love leaves gashes unhealed in the veins of light. Darkness seeps through the void. Then, I turn to the oak before blindness strikes a feeble hope dead. The oak that frames the wind frames laughter of children in the distance, and songs of birds in the closeness of the sky.

IV

I breathe in the peacefulness of two dogs lying in the fading sun, the serenity of two horses grazing in the ripples of now. The oak frames a scent of mimosas and a conceptual Spring scatters yellow dust upon my paintings to be. My fingers weave a basket of images and I’m determined to fill it with their essence.

V

I smile at the oak. There are friends whom I would like to gather here, by this wind which it frames. Friends who write, spirits that feel, minds that seek. Warm hands that mine would like to hold so that we all could then open them, in kaleidoscopic freedom, of giving as of receiving.

VI

I don’t know why I wrote all this, by the oak. I know that it frames, with the wind, an awareness of gratitude. And it feels good, in spite of the pain that frames this oak in the world, today.

© 2006 Alexandra* ~ OneLight*®