indian trees

The tree leans over our house

waiting for wind.

A scar runs deep in its skin

and memories are scattered around its base

in tiny fragments.

It wishes to

scream out its story,

but it has no mouth to do so.

It's family is around us,

standing among the other trees,

each leaning in its own way,

each scarred differently,

each having different memories of the past.

The past tells of these trees

- they cannot tell for themselves -

and how the people off the land

journeyed through and

stripped off

the covering of the trees,

eating the woody flesh.

There was no other food,

and they did not take

enough to kill the trees.

Only enough to leave scars.

It makes one realize

that sacrifices leave scars.

Pain leaves marks.

Suffering leaves wounds.

And sometimes

one must sacrifice

unwillingly,

as the trees.

They did not choose to be the trees.

They did not choose to provide food

for the people of the land.

They did not choose to be scarred.

But:

They did choose to not die

from the pain.

They chose to keep living;

to keep breathing;

to keep making shade and oxygen;

to keep being trees.

They did not fall

to the ground and

rot into the dirt. They hurt.

They bled their sap.

They felt the wind against bare

wood and winced at it's cold teeth.

But though they hurt,

they continued living

long enough

to lean

over our house.

Day 16: a poem about fall, and mind palaces, and trees

write a poem, they said.
write another poem about fall.
I already HAVE, I think.
I don't think I have any more, hidden away in the nooks and crannies of my brain.
I'm empty - I've given all I have to give.
you can only describe the crispness of the air
and the odor of the leaves
and all my favorite things about fall
so many times. there are only so may words for it.

But then I think of my writing place.
its in my mind palace,
where I go mentally even when
I can't be there physically.

I built my little office in the corner of my being.
its a little shady, with
warm grey walls and
photos of every good memory I've ever had
strung across the walls.
there's a hammock for when I need to just curl up and cry
there's a tree that has a reading nook
and a branch that forms a bookshelf.
the leaves turn red when I need a whiff of autumn.
sometimes it will even lose those leaves
if I need some winter.

and in the corner of the corner,
there's a little desk
with a little computer
with the perpetually open Word document
that forms the journal of my life.

and when I sit at that little desk, I'm in a
sweatshirt and stretchy jeans
and I can sit with slumped shoulders and criss-crossed legs
and I don't have anywhere to be
my mind calms
and all I can hear is that slight sigh of the tree in the corner
and my own thoughts.
and those thoughts say:

write.
keep writing.
even when you don't have anything left.
because writing keeps you sane
writing tells you what you think because its
your own words on the page.

in the fall time trees lose their leaves,
and they catch that glimpse of themselves on the ground.
they see the front of foliage they are presenting.
they see their face.
and while they are not able to change the way their leaves will look in the spring and even next fall,
you can.
you can look at your writing and decide what you want
to edit
and change
and DO with it.
you can decide what you want it to look like.
you can decide what YOU want to look like
because your writing is a reflection of you.
your writing is your ability to step outside yourself and
look inwards to discover who you are
and then edit.
trees do it.
they edit every. single. year.
they lose everything but their core.
and when the spring comes, they regrow
EVERYTHING.

I can't help but wonder
what is wrong with this method?
nothing. nothing about it is bad.
what we absolutely have to have,
we should save in our trunk.
we should make those things our core,
letting them engrain themselves in us
(pun intended)
and the rest
the worries, the problems
the stuff we hold onto for no reason
and the stuff that weighs us down:
we should let go of those. we should shed our leaves
and let the snow cover them up
and then in the morning, we should start writing again.
in the spring, we should grow new leaves.

Days 9 and 13: my favorite part of fall and a menagerie of photos to boot...

Autumn. I love it. I don’t love it the way some people love summer or winter or spring, loving it because it gives me nicer weather or skiing or vacations. I love it because it makes me giddy. I love it when the leaves skitter down the sidewalk like scared cats and the trees chuckle their response, tossing down more deceased foliage for amusement. I love the slight breezes and the way the cold crisp mornings smell clean. I hate the way summer comes back in the afternoons, too hot for the leggings and sweaters that I so desperately adore. I crumple up happily at the odor of musty leaves and sigh deeply when the bitter, tantalized odor of coffee wafts into my nose…the same nose that I bury deeply between scarves and aviators.

I love the way autumn sinks into winter, the black hole of seasons. Foliage turns from green to must to yellow to red to brown and then disappears altogether under white snow. The warm summer days get nippy in the mornings, then that cold begins to stretch long fingers deeper under the skin of the day, until I can wear my jacket when I walk to my car after work, and then eventually I need a coat because let’s be honest, forty-five degrees is just too cold for only a sweater.

I love the ache that comes with the anticipation. The waiting for that day when you finally realize its only forty-four days until Thanksgiving (which is, according to the Sami Calendar, National FOOD Day) and only sixty days until my birthday and only seventy three days until Christmas (which is Second National FOOD Day).  This gets me thinking about Christmas shopping, and I’ll let you in on a little secret: the best Christmas shopping is done in autumn. Creative juices aren’t so frozen then, prices are just a little lower, and everything is a bit more open as far as gift options go. Yes, the anticipation for these days and then after that, spring.

I love autumn because it is the calm before the storm, the beauty before destruction. It is the gray hairs among the black, the silver strands. It is the sunset before the night. The happy ending before the next adventure. It is the fuel before the long journey. The midnight snack because heaven knows that we wouldn’t make it to the morning without that fridge-light-flooded search for something to put us back to sleep. It is the reward because we’ve made it this far through the year.

I love autumn because it is the beginning of the trail that leads to my self. It is alluring, calling to me: fall into me. Fall into autumn’s embrace, which will be enveloped by winter, which will be buried in cold and then from this death spring will arise and there will be new life. I love autumn because I relate to it. It says get rid of the unneeded, for a new journey begins. Dwell not too long in one mindset, but seek newness and freshness always, learning from the past and pressing forward into the future to try out newly acquired knowledge. Be new, be rewarded, be you.

This is why I love this season. It falls into autumn into December into me.

OCTOBER (blogtober: day 8)

Day 8: Favorite things to do in October

they say it
like october is a place.

like you can smell its breeze and run through its grass, dry and dead though it may be.
welcome to october: population 2,015
the diner on the corner serves pumpkin pie, halloween candy, and apple cider.

October: Home of the largest Pumpkin Patch

orangish, browning leaves blanket the ground year-round
getting soggy with each damp night that sometimes turn into foggy mornings
that turn into sunshiny days that make you squint against the bright orange leaves

and the windowpanes are almost, almost frosted but not quite.

when october is a place you inhale its air and you become another person:
one who walks down the sidewalk slower than normal
stepping on crunchy leaves and burying your nose in your scarf.

and you think:

I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. -L.M.Montgomery

and you think that maybe october isn't a place - a physical place
as much as it is a mindset.
slow down. take those long last breaths before the icy pain of winter.
appreciate the dying beauty of the world around you.
october isn't a place but a time.
not even a season.
its just a paused moment between hot and cold
life and death
a bench to sit and watch leaves fall.

autumn, from autumnus - cold, to cool off, or enriched, enlarged, ample.
the cold grows, from autumn.
the winter springs from autumns death,
the spring from winter's demise.

the favorite thing to do in the little town of october
is watch life go round and round.

i'll give you a run-down of my actual favorite things to do in october. basically, play in leaves and take pretty pictures and dress in boots and scarves and flannel and have bonfires and smell the air and drink hot hazelnut breves. and write poetry. :D