Saturday, April 26, 2014

Le Hêtre: Beech Gate




The roots of the beech are living serpents
There is a green woman in the tree gate
her eyes are the green fire of growing things
The winged deer stamps its hooves
impatient for me to go in or go up.
High in the branches, close to the crown,
the raven couple wait for me
but for now my way is down
into the painted cave, past the see stone
where a ruined king came to call me.

For time I do not count I am among the long
luminous elegant people who raised me
when I was away from my body as a boy.
But I will not spend another life with them,
not yet. I feel my way down, ever down
to the shallows of blind fish
where grains of sand sparkle like jewels.
I choose the grain that glows like cinnabar
and it becomes a universe. I see now
how the infinitely large is contained
in the infinitely small, how the high branches
of the world tree in one universe
are the roots of the tree of life in another.

- Hameau de l'Etoile, April 27, 2014


Graphic: Le Hêtre de Ponthus, Forêt de Brocéliande

4 comments:

nina said...

I imagine trees as humans who achieved their highest degree of self-realization in their human form and as a result they could freely choose their further way of being.
Thus, some of them, whose love to life on earth exceeded fear of destruction, decided to take on the form of a luminous tree.
Trees might look very stationary from outside but inside they do tremendous work and they are able to undertake long journeys. They connect earth and sky, exactly like us, but not having any hidden resistance, energy in them flows smoothly, like water in a clean, unobstructed riverbed.
Everybody who opens in the presence of the tree, must be blessed by its gently flowing and perfectly balanced energy. As a matter of fact, trees silently preach a green gospel of joining opposite forces into a perfect harmony. Furthermore, they have capacity to take in poisonous stuff, turn it into nutrition and benefit from it, both on a material and spiritual level.
I am wondering if their transforming power is not the main secret why we enjoy so much lingering in their vicinity. Perhaps subconsciously we want to learn from them how to accept and absorb negativity, our own as well as others and finally transform in into a healing potion.
Thank God, trees already know it, poets may describe it in their own inspiring ways for others and all of us can feel it with simple hearts.

Celeste said...

Beautiful poem, Robert!

I am reminded of a dream I had where I was told that my grandmother was a copper beech tree.

Shine on,
Celeste

ELS said...

"the long
luminous elegant people who raised me
when I was away from my body as a boy"

That is glorious; it's made me think about so many things.

nance said...

"how the high branches
of the world tree in one universe
are the roots of the tree of life in another."…
confirms a dream journey I had a few years back ascending through many levels of existence.
I'd never heard of this before.