 |
Category: Writing and Poetry
I think this is an unusual write for me. Though I started this poem on the 17th, and was seven lines away from completing it around the 21st, I decided to scrap it altogether and start over, keeping only one phrase from the original attempt. I finished this rewritten version of the poem last night on the 29th, around 10pm. The reason I scrapped the original attempt is because I realized I was going about it all wrong, and that the idea behind the original attemptto tell the story of how I "met" this treeshould be reserved for another form or free verse. I'll likely explore this in the near future.
What worked for the hybridanelle form, however, was to depict the tree's trans-dimensional, broad-spectrum nature in a way that did not humanizepersonifyits being. What I decided to try and do is this: offer the human reader a black oak experience, to the best of my ability, rather than breaking off all the tree's limbs and carving its trunk into human form in order to suit the human ego. For instance, "A tree whose hungry mouth is prest / into the earth's sweet flowing breast" is a tragic humanification of the tree. The tree has no mouth, and it sucks no breast. Likewise for such phrases as "branches lifted like praying arms."
The human being who has not touched or been touched by the mind of an old well rooted tree has no way of really "seeing" what such beings are like through these sorts of humanifications. Filtering everything unfamiliar into human terms and concepts through varying degrees of humanification can only offer so much. At some point, at least for the animist, the human being must look beyond his own human experience, allowing himself to perceive the experience of other beings.
This is difficult, to say the least. And its unfamiliar territory, which can be uncomfortable. So I'm not expecting this poem to be well received. This poem is very much written for the animist to enjoy and reflect on, with the hope that others will still be able to find something in it that they can enjoy and relate to as well.
The oak tree that has inspired this poem is a large black oak that grows along the side of Orr Springs Road about a thirty minutes drive west of Ukiah, CA. Aside from the tree being large, and having a rather nice vantage point, it's unremarkable to look at. There's not much to distinguish it from any other black oak outwardly. However, I crossed paths with this tree's "spirit" (another humanification, actually, which is why the word doesn't occur in the poem) in dream one night, I think in 2001, and recognized it instantly a week later as I drove past it on Orr Springs Road.
It's one of those confusing situations to think about. Did I dream about the tree before meeting it because I was about to meet it, or did I come to encounter the tree on Orr Springs Road (my first time driving over this road) because I crossed paths with the tree in dream? Which inspired what? That's the thing: both can be true to a non-linear being, and trees are non-linear beings, which is something else this poem attempts to depict.
So enough of this. I may tell the story of the dream and drive encounters with this being more fully another time.
Here's the poem:
Oak Dream
random weaves of rugged bark
writhe against the phasing skies
that drift beyond capricious leaves
roots extend throughout a dozen worlds
winding deep into the plane of dreams
to brush the wayward mind like strokes of wind
weathered plates of charcoal gray
shift and slide into the air as
random weaves of rugged bark
tendrils cleave the mists from drought to draught
driven to explore domains of light
winding deep into the plane of dreams
vapors breathe against the moon
raising plumes within the void
that drift beyond capricious leaves
solar cells fan out as emerald lobes
along dynamic conduits of growth
driven to explore domains of light
mosses clothe erratic limbs
climbing toward inconstant heights up
random weaves of rugged bark
colors dance across elusive grains
in gradual pilgrimage through subtle realms
along dynamic conduits of growth
russet rustles greet the stars
when cloud-breaks split the stormy nights
that drift beyond capricious leaves
like ripples cast by gentle drops of rain
rings expand through time as branches reach
in gradual pilgrimage through subtle realms
stardust rises from the earth
to sing across the depths of space on
random weaves of rugged bark
that drift beyond capricious leaves
beneath the spread of tangible mirage
roots extend throughout a dozen worlds
rings expand through time as branches reach
to brush the wayward mind like strokes of wind
Odd numbered stanzas are in tetrameters, and the even numbered stanzas are in pentameters.
The odd numbered stanzas use only associative end-line parallelisms. The b scheme is focused on associations with open sky and air with words such as "skies", "air", "void", "heights", "nights", and "space". The a scheme is more elaborate, combining descriptive and relational elements together. For instance "bark" and "leaves" are descriptive words that can be used to describe a tree, and "bark" is then paired with "gray" and "limbs", because the bark of an old black oak actually is "gray" and this creates the appearance of "gray limbs". "Leaves" is then associated with nighttime celestial figures, "moon" and "stars", because I hoped to cause an image in the mind of the reader through this association of celestial night-light glinting off the leaves of the crown, and also because I wanted to depict through these associations the mysterious nature of the tree, mostly hidden from human perception and cognition, as if in the shadow of night.
The end-line scheme of even numbered stanzas is much more straight forward, alliteration all the way: "worlds | winds", "draught | dreams", "lobes | light", "grains | growth", "rain | realms", and "mirage | reach". What's a little different here is that I've alliterated the first accented syllable of each second line with the last accented syllable of the line before it: "worlds | winding", "draught | driven", "lobes | along", "grains | gradual", "rain | rings", and "mirage | roots". This was challenging, but I wanted to use this scheme to help depict an aspect of the tree's relationship with and existence across parallel dimensions (they're not really parallel, just existing here in and as spectrums beyond our direct experience of perception and cognition.
If you're interested in seeing how others have reacted to this poem (not knowing any of the aboveI reserve these explanations for you specifically), I have it posted at AllPoetry.com:
Oak Dream (hybridanelle 15)
http://allpoetry.com/Poem/1725472/all=1
8:00 AM
Powered by  | | English | | Albanian | | Arabic | | Bulgarian | | Catalan | | Chinese | | Croatian | | Czech | | Danish | | Dutch | | Estonian | | Filipino | | Finnish | | French | | Galician | | German | | Greek | | Hebrew | | Hindi | | Hungarian | | Indonesian | | Italian | | Japanese | | Korean | | Latvian | | Lithuanian | | Maltese | | Norwegian | | Polish | | Portuguese | | Romanian | | Russian | | Serbian | | Slovak | | Slovenian | | Spanish | | Swedish | | Thai | | Turkish | | Ukrainian | | Vietnamese |
|