Resistance

Learning to acquiesce....

We could die tomorrow
reflects the kauri tree,
gilded in morning golden light.

We could pass in the next moment even.
How the kauri tree knows this,
with her straight trunk growing up.

We could be erased just like that,
suggest the Early Cheer daffodils
and delicate snowdrops.

Perish in an instant,
even while intent on growth,
be blown in the wind,
dispersed as dandelion seeds.

All these “ifs”, and “coulds”—
how Nature does not fear so much
as live.

Spread her verdant green blanket
across any patch of vacant soil,
drink in rain and sunlight,
use the winds to her advantage.

How she is obstinately positive,
a united body in concert
with the elements,
moving to the demands of the moment—

quiet green-shooted growth in the earth,
swelling of buds.

We could be consumed, yes,
but does Nature shake her head
at our rushing to nothing.

No, it’s almost like she leads the charge,
in living and breathing,
in adapting.

What choice do we have
but to perceive each pregnant arriving moment
as full and life giving.

Do we resist her oxygenated breath,
her fruiting, sustaining food forest,
her stubborn growth.

Or does Nature teach us
the importance of vital living
as a hope driven form of resistance.

Even though she seems to carelessly
live in the moment,
shaking her frivolous seed heads,
bearing bright berries for the birds.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry

...there is no place I know outside today

except for the unknown all around me

the only presence that appears to stay

everything that I call mine it lent me

even the way that I believe the day

for as long as it is here and is me.

~ W.S. Merwin, extract from “A Momentary Creed”,
from The Shadow of Sirius

The water in your body is just visiting. It was a thunderstorm a week ago. It will be the ocean soon enough. Most of your cells come and go like morning dew. We are more weather pattern than stone monument. Sunlight on mist. Summer lightning.

~ Jarod K. Anderson,
from Field Guide to the Haunted Forest