Elder woman sits on her porch
She’s older than the trees
Light older than us all
Filters through the leaves
Did you feel it breathing
Caress across your face
Her sight sees light
Hum of humming bird attests
Brown down blanket leaf rolls a cat
Scratches trunks live oak
A rustle in the green
Time shades across the sky
Pond of oaks replies
A wind of light swells and red dyes
Bright every where
When very young the saplings
You could see the mountain to its very top
Canopy now the Indian graves
Climb up thick stems
Branched windows heaven arch
Fade light in cloud obscurity
Old eyes peer at patches always changing rearranging
Sounds of a din
Sudden white light bashes
Ground makes color notes of nothing’s weight
Acorn’s murmur
Birds discuss aesthetics
Snakes slither night growing
For a thousand years
Shade subtle
Black poles huddle blowing gray
Rustling feet halt waiting for the pitch to brighten
Owl’s eyes lurk whoing
Interlopers breech
Green portals enter
Mortals stepping dark
Await the moon’s silver shafts
To cold fire the sacred space
Where water leaks to trees
Puddling black bowers slow lighting into life
Eighty years this time for shade
Ten years plus her birth
Fire charcoals the cathedral
Ruins swiftly shot back shoots
From roots survived
The sun of years heats up the stems
Greening outward upward
Gnarling bending soaring
A vale for heaven’s attention
Sun time for cold time space
Eternity arises with a leaf, a twig, a drop of rain
Seeps to Earth decays to dust
An arch of wood’s extension
Will she live to see tomorrow
Tomorrow will be oak grove
Light goes on forever.
(September 21,1982 for Ellen Dorland and The Dorland Mountain Arts Colony)
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