The Hanging Garden Tree
Meares Island, Tofino
I think that I shall never see
a poem lovely as a tree.......*
This is where my poetic journey began,
along with my love of trees.
I fell under the spell of words
when I was eight. The teacher
was dictating; the word
was "paw". I loved that word
and wrote it as carefully and
reverently as I could.
The teacher smiled.
And I still love that word.
When I was fourteen, sitting in class,
my first poem came, with urgency.
I wrote it down:
Each acquaintance on the road to Never
whispers through the soul
and leaves a soft thought to remember
when tomorrow dawns cold.
It seems each person that I meet
on this long journey to the end of things
is someone I can love
and I must tell him of my love
for if my heart stopped beating
e'er one more sky was streaked with dawn,
how would my many loves live on,
uncertain of this extra dream of life
only my heart, in love, can dwell upon?
And I was off, chasing the words,
finding the wild places, in my heart and
in the world: the forests and hillsides,
the meadows and rivers and
wild winter waves, loving dogs
and wolves and people and then
coming home to put them into poems.
Quoth the Raven : Nevermore!*
drew me to the wilder shore,
drew me to the wilder shore,
urged me to listen to the inner voice
that led me out of the desert, over the mountains,
and to the sea, where I
forever belong.
forever belong.
My poems leave a trail behind me
for others to follow after I am gone.
They say: I was here, and
this is who I was.
They are the words
of my soul-song.
They are the words
of my soul-song.
My teachers looked the other way through high school, as I feverishly penned my poems. Poems slowed for me during the busy years of raising my children, but started up again once I moved to Tofino.
And with what joy I found the online poetry community in 2010, which sparked a frenzy of writing through all the glorious years since. What a journey it has been!
* The tree quote is, of course, from the poem by Joyce Kilmer and the raven quote from Poe.
I really love your inclusion of your own whole first poem, which shows your early voice and how it still sings in what you write today. Your last lines sum it all up perfectly, too: "..how would my many loves live on,/uncertain of this extra dream of life/only my heart, in love, can dwell upon?" I have felt love, and sometimes the sorrow it brings us, in all your writing, Sherry, and it shines here as well.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Joy. I felt this poem isn't very good but these are the words that came and I tend to go with that. Yes, love and sorrow, grief and gratitude, twin states of being for aware people in this world. Thank you for your support all these years, Joy.
ReplyDeleteI am grinning to know that "paw" sounded so special to you, because of course it did!
ReplyDeleteI know, right? I remember curving my own little paw around the word, to protect it as I printed it.
DeleteTrees and Paws and the call of the wild sea. Seems to me you have always been home Sherry.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Paul. When it comes to nature, I always have. In love with the sky my whole life.
DeleteAmazing that you can zero in on the one poem that triggered it all... I think one of my early impressions came from Wordsworth's Solitary Reaper that was in a school text book and the bleak beauty of what he described has stayed with me..not as words, just as a mood. Wonderful journey Sherry, thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteGreat window back on the early threads of the poet you became. You were a gifted poet at 14! (Doggerel dogged me for decades -- many believe it still does.) You've been faithful to that first poem and the forest it enchanted you into. Amen Sherry.
ReplyDeleteThat wild romantic streak comes right through, Sherry, as you pen for us "this long journey into the end of things" that is life in all its brilliance and its darkness, but also the poetic journey from its roots straight up over the mountains. As enthralling as can be, another wondrous soul-song.
ReplyDeleteI love that last stanza. And what wise words from your fourteen-year-old self.
ReplyDeleteWell there is no doubt you are a born poet..The trail you will leave behind is spectacular and will be life changing. You are sort of my poetic rock in a maelstrom of turmoil....and I'm sure for others as well
ReplyDeleteTake care and know you are much appreciated dear Poet.
Thank you, friends, for your very kind words.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the trail, for the soul-song of you. it's a completely believable and loving story, proving what you always knew: "Each acquaintance on the road to Never
ReplyDeletewhispers through the soul
and leaves a soft thought to remember."
Thank you for sharing your actual first poem, Sherry - here I can see where the seed was planted! The poetry trail you blaze is one worth following.
ReplyDelete