Poem 9 Trees

I love being in the trees or forests ... there are places where I feel closer to God and to hearing His voice, so I will often go to the woods

Trees

There’s something about trees and me

An attraction , a drawing near

From single spreading chestnut

Or draping weeping willow

To close grown forest pine

Even cut down made into fire-awaiting log piles

Something about the texture

The size and grandeur of a stately oak

Or the perfect shape of cultured bonsai

Leaf blowing

Trunk swaying

Fragile sapling

Long growing

Snow holding

Season watching

Trees

I wonder what they have seen over the years

What secrets they hold

The birds that have nested

The people who have sheltered

What storms they have weathered

There is something of awe and majesty

The sheer size of a sequoia

The microcosmic world encompassing a tree

Encircling and covering

Overarching

Overshadowing

Surrounding

Breeze swaying

Shelter – providing

Noise cancelling

Intertwining

Trees

And here in the forest I have stood

In awe – inspired silence

Inside heavy stillness

With heart-stopping expectation

With here and there

The drilling of a woodpecker

The scuttle of a squirrel

The screeching of an owl

The call of a jay

The dancing sway of pine

The autumn fall of leaves

The spreading majesty of centuries

Of oak , or elm , or cedar

I hear God deeply in this cathedral of the forest

I hear myself, my heartbeat , my breathing

I feel the heavy stillness

The still small voice

Which calls me back again and again to the One who made

Trees

John nutall March 2018