Balsam

The eye of the forest 

never sleeps.

 In blue winter light 

I see Balsam framed 

against slivers

of what once

was Wilderness  

a tall spire singing

impervious to Changes

that will hasten her death.

Yesterday while snowshoeing on my land I looked up and there S/he was framed by a woodland eye – a balsam spire. With Climate Change upon us these most beloved fragrant trees will be moving northward if they survive disease and one day they will be gone.

I spend so much time with trees. They have taught me that life and death are woven into one tapestry and that roots of what was will live on in another as yet unknown form.

Today on Valentines Day I had an illumination… many years ago a child was born on this day and that night I witnessed a deer lying under a balsam tree in a moonlit field. I experienced such a sense of PEACE that I believed that one day “All Would Be Well Again” although at the time this vision seemed so impersonal it disturbed me.

Twenty five years passed.

One day last spring I met a boy who would change my life, a boy who cared about me like I did him, a boy who loved trees, one that continues to teach me not only about the forest but how to live. I love him. And now I remember that vision, knowing that nature was leading me home to him.