by Shelly Reed Thieman
Tonight her head is regally
swaddled in a kaleidoscope
of silk. Her eyes astonish
like light from a bay window
on unblemished snow.
I watch her faithful pen
move across paper with the ease
of a moon rising. She pauses
to moisten her mouth—a swig
of magnolia tea, a dollop of bee
balm to soothe the bark of her lips.
Perhaps she’s a yew in the poem
she scrawls, the wise grandmother
of trees, so mysteriously hollow
her rings cannot be counted.
I watch her, limber with language
she curates from the heartwood
of her pain. Tonight I crown
her hazel, the yogi of all trees.
Namaste, she says with her eyes.
About the photographer: Emily Sorensen is an environmental educator and a DFA Candidate researching ecological art and performance at the Yale School of Drama, where she earned an MFA in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism. She likes to go outside and take pictures of trees @emily.sorensen.
Loved the poem and Shelly’s obvious connection with trees. Here in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, many trees were either damaged or destroyed during Helene. Some have recovered; some never will. We feel their loss and the pain of the forests.
Patricia, thank you for you kind words. We know they grieve, the trees, and we grieve with and for them.