FOREST FLOOR
The name of the next street over
hints at what our neighborhood was
before there were houses and streets:
Forest.
The Red Oak in our front yard,
her sisters the Burr Oak across the street,
and the trio of Hickories in our neighbor's yard
are all of a size that suggests they have been standing here
for at least a century.
Maybe longer.
That they have survived the destruction of their habitat
and adapted to urban living
is a testament to their tenacity.
But the real miracle can be found
at the base of our oak.
On what was once the forest floor,
(now an unmown ring around the base of the tree)
sessile trillium,
perhaps as old as the fragment of forest,
emerges and blooms
every spring.
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2015
Carol, at Carol's Corner, will join me again this year as often as possible.
Kimberley, at iWrite in Maine, is joining me this month.
Kay, at A Journey Through the Pages, is joining, too!
Steve, at inside the dog, is sharing his poems
in the comments at Poetrepository.
Heidi, at my juicy little universe, will join us when she can.
Linda, at TeacherDance, will join as often as she can.
Check the comments at A Year of Reading or Poetrepository for her poems.
Kevin (Kevin's Meandering Mind) is back this year,
leaving poetry trax in the comments.
Carol, at Beyond Literacy Link, is writing alongside us when she can.
She celebrates bloggers' voice.
Jone, at DeoWriter, is doing a "double L" challenge.
I love the story of your street, & am amazed by the trillium. Could it really be that old, & to keep returning? Beautiful noticing. I think part of why I bought my place now is a cottonwood that is over a 100 years old, right outside this office window. And I am grateful that it wasn't cut down when the development was built. (I'm in the old Lowry Air Force Base). Thanks for reminding about what's important, Mary Lee.
ReplyDeleteLove the sense of time in your poem, Mary Lee. And the way you can read the remnants of the landscape to see what might have been there. These are clues, aren't they, to the past. They are all around us, "a testament to their tenacity". How rich is that? Thank you!
ReplyDeleteMy poem may come later this evening...or maybe not? Grades, contract negotiations, building chicken coops have overtaken my life like the garlic mustard I'm pulling in the woods threatens the wildflowers. Ugh.
I just love thinking about what something was long ago. Interesting the way you wove the street names into the past and present of your poem.
ReplyDeleteCathy
?
ReplyDeleteLike the beat of your heart
wonder should be reflexive
all of a sudden daily you
should find yourself
pricked by a kind of desire
formless but strong
an itch of the mind
that you just must scratch
but it's not in your head
it wanders all over your body
your feet want to travel
your hands want to make
every sense wants in
on the wonder
while your mind does the molding
stretching & straightening a circling
half-round-stem-and-dot
into a bee-line towards that
exclamatory dot of Got It
!
Oh, how I adore the way that ? turned into a !
DeleteThanks for joining us!
Mary Lee I LOVE your trillium, resolutely coming back year after year as though no neighborhood had grown up, as though no neighbor deliberately doesn't mow. I am currently filled with wonder at the gift of perennials who arrive to fill me with hope wihtout my lifting a finger!
ReplyDelete