Tag Archives: trees

Good Things Only #16

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OK, so it’s a beautiful morning. Cold, about 1 degree when I got up. Just a touch of frost. The grass is very green and I can’t see a cloud in a very blue and crisp winter sky. The air is sharp, crystal and the light breeze has a bite that penetrates. Nonetheless (I love that word), it is a beautiful morning with the stripped bare deciduous trees revealed in their all their steak naked glory and the evergreen indigenous trees contrastingly clad in their full, puffed up grey green winter coats. It is a beautiful morning. It is silent except for the gentle rustle of that surprisingly penetrating soft wind. Oh, and the always there hushed background tumbling sounds of water spilling and falling, running and spinning, turbulent and dashing over flat granite shelves into rocky hollows and against small stray boulders pushed along by the intermittent pressure waves of variable winter flows as they surge with irregularity down the creek. It is a beautiful morning.

Against the cold I am wearing my favourite jumper. There is no heater on, just the layers of clothes capped by this marvellously insulating and cosy thickness of wool are keeping me warm. Lovingly knitted by my loving wife, it only really gets a look at the world in winter. It is too warm most of the time for wear in other seasons. I think that is what makes it all the more special. The built in love and warmth reflect its specialised purpose.

It is big and old, enveloping, creamy and embossed. These days it is a little on the stretched, sagging and droopy side (giving it a 10 on the affection scale – which as everyone knows is the top score for a jumper). It sort of hangs around me rather than is worn by me. In fact it could be called an affectionate jumper. The first of its kind and a quality to be aspired to and emulated by all knitters who learn of it.

The crew neck now has a cute little “V” shape from under which diverse collars can peek. Otherwise the knitting has held its pattern for years, making it sort of tight and loose at the same time. I love the detail of its repetition. This jumper has character. Maybe it even is a character in its own right. Yes, i think that is right, it has become a character in the story of my life because I have an emotional attachment to this jumper. We belong together. And that’s the way I like it.

Storm wind

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 Such a turbulent, pitiless, brutal battering.
 This powerful storm wind pushes relentlessly through 
 the defenceless trees of the creek.
 It lashes most at the isolated and vulnerable,
 stripping them bare of grey green winter cloaks, 
 whipping the fabric of canopies to ragged threads,
 blasting layers of protective cladding away into a roaring tempest.

 This scouring wind probes incessantly for weakness,
 fissures in the gnarly bark skins,
 cracks in the very bones of each noble specimen
 mercilessly exposing deficiencies
 as it flails and lays bare its victims 
 with neither remorse nor respite.

Over extended over and over, flawed limbs fail first
fracture, snap and drop.
Crowns too heavy with water shake and quiver.
Sodden feet lose their grip on the world. 
Once stately trunks twist, rock, waver, shudder 
and fall.
And the sound of the final defeat is an explosive crack,
the collapse a mighty crash,
and the thud at the end is dead.

For today’s dVerse poetics Sarah prompted us to think and write about the elements. I chose air/wind because I often find myself contemplating the fierceness of a storm’s breath as it can turn the tranquility of our peaceful riparian zone into a deadly maelstrom.

5 Good Things Only #03

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Sitting on the verandah in the late afternoon after the day’s work is done. Relaxing, drinking tea, reading books, watching and listening to birds.

Budding deciduous trees sprinkled with emergent new leaves of every shade of green.

The assertive confidence of a pair of Grey Shrike Thrushes as they stand next to me while I remove a stump. Alert, heads cocked to one side, closely monitoring what the next spade full of soil will turn over.

Bees by the dozen on the tall lilac coloured columns of flower laden Rosemary branches.

The quiet and gentle breeze creating a shimmering in the Swamp Gum canopy along the creek as sunlight reflects off ever tousled, shiny grey green eucalyptus leaves.

The Trees

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River red gum under rainbow, north of Yarck on the Great Victorian Rail Trail.
 
 The trees, the trees are prophesy
 Their collective memory grand
 equips the trees to well foresee
 beyond the reign of man 
 
 In forests or in parks 
 or standing on their own
 if trees of the world
 could speak as one
 I know what they’d say 
 before they are gone

 For happiness, health and wealth
 For worthwhile survival
 Save the trees to save yourself
 re-wilding equates with revival

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