A tree is the perfect foil to gravity; gravity and its insidious ability to make that sweet pull downward at the end of the day seem like desire.

Fruit falls from the branch, as do leaves, so we know at least that a tree too is subject to the law.

But with all its force and strength a tree goes unequivocally in two directions at once. Poised at ground level, it finds the air above free and unexplored and the earth liquid with possibility. The greater the pressure gravity exerts upon it, the stronger and more obstinate it grows. A tree refuses any single, overweaning influence.

While living in complete compliance.

As one who is called both to the centre of the earth and to the sun.

All of that isn't much more than an observation, sweet one, a thoughtful one, but not much more, really. And yet, it sticks to me, heart and soul. The image is something I can't get out of my vision.

From a business point of view, it really has no market value. It can't employ anyone; I could put it on a t-shirt and try to sell it, but it's probably too long. I can't affix my having read it to my resume; nobody would hire me because I like it. I can't sell it, really. It's only a loving observation about trees, but it's one that I can't quite shake because, in some odd sense, this morning I'll look out at the trees on my yard in a way that's slightly different; I'll see them as creatures, like me, growing between time and eternity--look at that last line.

It's from Naked Trees, a series of prose poems by John Terpstra. He wrote it, I read it, and, my guess is, it isn't doing either of us any good financially.

But I feel rich, if I use rich as a metaphor. I'm richer for having read it. Thoreau might say that my bank account has grown, my portfolio is stronger because more diverse, and, I'm considerably better off if I see trees all around me as co-habitors God's own blessed world.

It's that kind of wealth of soul that attracts me to literature and has for more than 40 years. Observations, reflections, stories and poems--I'm vastly better off having read them, having found myself in them, having discovered my place. When I bike to school past those huge old lindens north of the house this morning, I'll feel just a little more well-heeled.

And now the question is, when I get to campus, can I sell that to students?

____________________________________________________
John Terpstra, a fine poet and non-fiction writer, will be visiting those very students in a week or so, and I've created a blog with all kinds of similar Terpstra reflections and observations, which you can sample, freely, simply by going there--terpstradordt.blogspot.com. Who knows, maybe you'll get rich. Just click on the the pic at the top of the column to the left.

Morning Prayer--a poem

The speaker in this morning's poem from Writer's Almanac is kind of a scold--maybe that's why I like him, or her. Once he or she identifies himself or herself, he seems more than ready to stand up and hold forth in manner of the prophet Jeremiah.

That tone of voice is in me too as I start the year with another gang of kids who are all, so noticeably, yet another year younger. I feel more and more, well, grandfatherly, more and more as if I ought to just shut the notes and deliver a sermon about what old men know and young kids sure as heck don't. This morning's poem makes me want to raise a pointer and preach. Listen.

Drugstore by Carl Dennis

Don't be ashamed that your parents
Didn't happen to meet at an art exhibit
Or at a protest against a foreign policy
Based on fear of negotiation,
But in an aisle of a discount drugstore,
Near the antihistamine section,
Seeking relief from the common cold.

See what I mean? He uses the command form, in the negative too. Don't do this, don't do that. Don't be thinking you somehow lack privilege or stature or romance, he says. Just don't, because you ought to be proud. . . Listen.

You ought to be proud that even there,
Amid coughs and sneezes,
They were able to peer beneath
The veil of pointless happenstance.

Same voice. You ought to be taken with the fact that your folks could climb above their silly serendipity and see that somehow the man or woman they'd somehow run into with the cough syrup was, potentially at least, some thing much bigger and better than sore throat relief.

Here is someone, each thought,
Able to laugh at the indignities
That flesh is heir to. Here
Is a person one might care about.
Not love at first sight, but the will
To be ready to endorse the feeling
Should it arise.

I really should run this poem off and show it to my students. Don't know if they'd get it, but it would be good for them. Don't be disregarding who you are or what you come from because the fact is that somebody back there was alive and kicking and paying attention, and that's a good thing because. . .

Had they waited
For settings more promising,
You wouldn't be here,
Wishing things were different.

Yeah. Take that, kids. This little verse has the voice of a Calvinist. Quitjerbitchin'.

Why not delight at how young they were
When they made the most of their chances,
How young still, a little later,
When they bought a double plot
At the cemetery.

Ouch. I'm 62 and we haven't made such plans.

Look at you,
Twice as old now as they were
When they made arrangements,
And still you're thinking of moving on,
Of finding a town with a climate
Friendlier to your many talents.

Maybe I better cool it on the retirement plans.

Don't be ashamed of the homely thought
That whatever you might do elsewhere,
In the time remaining, you might do here
If you can resolve, at last, to pay attention.

I don't know that my students would get it, but, dear Lord, I do. Think lillies. Pay attention.

I believe, Lord--help thou my unbelief.