Live Virtual Group Session: 12PM EDT July 7th 2023

9 Comments

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “Trees” by Howard Nemerov, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about the nature of things.”

More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!

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Please join us for our next session Friday July 14th at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

"Trees" by Howard Nemerov

To be a giant and keep quiet about it,
To stay in one's own place;
To stand for the constant presence of process
And always to seem the same;
To be steady as a rock and always trembling,
Having the hard appearance of death
With the soft, fluent nature of growth,
One's Being deceptively armored,
One's Becoming deceptively vulnerable;
To be so tough, and take the light so well,
Freely providing forbidden knowledge
Of so many things about heaven and earth
For which we should otherwise have no word—
Poems or people are rarely so lovely,
And even when they have great qualities
They tend to tell you rather than exemplify
What they believe themselves to be about,
While from the moving silence of trees,
Whether in storm or calm, in leaf and naked,
Night or day, we draw conclusions of our own,
Sustaining and unnoticed as our breath,
And perilous also—though there has never been
A critical tree—about the nature of things.

Credit: poetrynook.com

9 thoughts on “Live Virtual Group Session: 12PM EDT July 7th 2023”

  1. Janine Mariscotti's avatar Janine Mariscotti

    Cradle and coffin
    Light and dark
    Silence and shouting
    Sadness and joy
    Asleep and Awake
    Cursing and Praising
    Ebb and flow
    Fallow and fruitful
    Broken and whole
    Within and without
    Pain and pleasure
    Separate and together
    Distressing and comforting
    Live and die
    Die and live

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    • Andre Lijoi's avatar Andre Lijoi

      Janine your poem’s voice says so much. Each line takes me back into Nemerov’s Trees starting with the first line where trees provide a resting place at the beginning and end of life right through to its end where life and death come back together. I am struck by the soft sounds of alliteration and the many contrasts presented. Thank you. Andre

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    • Michele348's avatar Michele348

      Janine, such is the course of living life… events that fall into our lives appear sometimes to be polar opposites of each other in regards to the perceived effects they have upon us. To truly experience the high points, we must have also experienced the lows… life is not always rainbows and butterflies Sometimes, those dark storm clouds creep in and we have to wait for them to pass. Such is the nature of life.

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    • Andre F. Lijoi, MD's avatar Andre F. Lijoi, MD

      Your voice speaks to how things so elemental as earth, fire, wind and water can lead to things so complex as birth, love, desire and death. So few words that say so much! Thank you. Andre

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  3. al3793's avatar al3793

    Nature in its diversity can be prickly
    but why be critical?
    I often catch myself on the thorns of
    the multiflora rose that line
    the cool banks of Rambo Run
    wishing the spring’s work party
    had cut them back yet
    when they bloom the sweetest aroma
    accompanies me along the stream
    adding such color to the beautiful
    wild brown trout that
    inhabit the waters there with
    their red and brown spots painted
    with the finesse of nature
    that the artist’s brush cannot match
    on a background of golden brown that
    melts onto the butter yellow belly below.
    And then there are the horse nettles
    that rear when the roses don’t
    whose sting lasts for hours
    mitigated only by the seeming numbness that surrounds them
    like tiny electric shocks to match the electrifying
    leaps of the trout as it tries to escape the barb of the hook.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    • michele348's avatar michele348

      I can associate with so much of what you wrote about here… the multiflora rose(which right now is running rampant in my woods) and the stinging nettle which I try to avoid at all costs on my hikes, add to that the 3-leaved demon…poison ivy! Your writing is so sensory stimulating!

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  4. Michele348's avatar Michele348

    About the nature of things~~~

    The gnarled sycamore tree stands tall and resolute, overseeing the comings and goings of his domain.
    His roots, like fingers, dig deep into Mother Earth to anchor him against life’s occurrences.
    He has withstood the downpours, the blizzards, the droughts, and still he has remained here in this very spot over the decades.

    His arching and spreading branches have given refuge to generations of species of birds who have made the decision to use his sturdy branches to raise their young.
    The gray squirrels leap and play tag among the outstretched arms of the tree that reach up toward the azure blue sky.
    Standing in the mid-day rays of sunlight, the stout trunk of the tree with its shades of white, tan, and gray, stands out among the other neighboring green vegetation…its uniqueness is on parade.

    What tales this great old tree might tell if only we stand quietly and place our hand upon his mottled trunk… stories of hardship, sorrow, love, and hope from all who have passed under the shade of his canopy.
    It is the wonder of the nature of things.

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