Dearest Fullmoon,
Weep not…
Spreading branches
embrace child,
bestowing
a graceful life.
~ julie © july 2012
THOUGHTS:
And this gorgeous maple is the view so artistically framed by my dining room window. I sit here often to gaze upon the view, as you would on a bench in a gallery keeping company with fine art. Then there’s Sadie, my adopted feline friend, who seems to enjoy the view from her windowsill perch, as much as I do from the “bench.”
One evening this past week, I was working in the garden alongside an angel named Janine who is teaching me all about how a garden grows and how “cultivating delight” does exactly that in our lives. As we were contemplating this weeping, cascading green maple and just when and where to do a little pruning, I remembered reading somewhere in folklore how many oriental cultures believe that passing an infant through the branches of a maple will impart a healthy and long life. With that sudden memory and delightful image, I began to play with finding those twelve words.
Hence:
My poem in twelve was written in response to this week’s prompt #115 at We Write Poems… Counting fingers plus two
Gorgeous write.
Thanks, Nan… I love it when nature inspires, as happened to me in that moment with one of my many Japanes maples.
Often define myself as a sister to trees. Your poem struck a deep chord, cultivating delight. Then read your notes and the cultural tradition and myth only deepened that delight. Thank you,
Elizabeth
Me too, Elizabeth. I love trees, especially maples and I keep asking the neighbors if I’ve planted too many of them but no objections so far. Thanks for the kind comment and a shared “sisterhood.”
Beautiful tribute to a tree.
Thanks, Annette. I have a hunch that Joyce Kilmer was right (in a ‘maple syrup’ sort of way) when she wrote “I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree.”
Poems to trees has a long tradition, and yours is quite lovely.
Thank you, Misky, for the kind words.
Gorgeous view and such well picked 12~well done!!!
Thank you! Thank you! I was kind of proud of this one myself cause it came from what touches me deeply.
Definitely!! Those are the best kind…bask in the glow of a great creative moment!! 🙂
Thanks again, Hannah!! I will do just that and eagerly await the next. Remind me to tell you a very cute “hannah” story when time and space allow.
I’d love that and I love what you say…eagerly await the next…yes!!! You can email me if you like!! 🙂
That maple tree is gorgeous, Julie, and your address of the fullmoon is soothing and graceful. It must look wonderful in autumn.
Thanks, Irene. Yes… it it magnificent in Autumn which is my most favorite time of year. Everything about it makes my heart sing. I’m pretty convinced that I must have experienced a “past life” somewhere in New England where Fall is in absolute splendor.
What a lovely idea. Maples are fabulous trees.
Thanks, Viv. I’m pretty new here and still learning my way around but want to say how much I’ve enjoyed your blog. It’s absolutely delightful and makes me yearn to visit France even more than I already did. You’re so right! Maples are fabulous trees and I can’t seem to have enough of them in my very small yard. Most are containerized and strategically placed but I love each one more than the next.
Thank you for those kind words.
You are so very welcome! My words were hearfelt and sincere. Hope you don’t mind but I got a bit curious about your picture and when I enlarged it was happily surprised to find that you’re wearing “my sweater”… well, not literally, of course, but I have one just like it. Is yours an Irish knit? It’s a beautiful picture and I’d like to think that we might have some common ground upon which to tread. Just a happy coincidence and it made me eagerly glad to share that with you. Call me goofy but pretty sweaters bring out the “sisterhood” in me and I probably got just a bit too “eager” to know more. Something tells me that you will understand my enthusiasm.
The sweater was one I bought from Damart for my husband but it was too short for him so I appropriated it.
Actually Julie (really really) this is a very lovely poem. It IS more an act of grace than anything merely sweet (and sweet wouldn’t be wrong, but the poem is so much more than that). Maybe I could say “disarming” – in sense that reading it several times allows me to let go first meanings and appreciate what is also implied, suggested but not spelled out. It is a quiet poem in that way.
Simple is simple, and true enough. But there’s more here still. Nice job.
neil
Thank you , Neil…. your appreciation means a great deal to me. You’re right about the “implied” meanings. I absolutely loved the folklore that inspired it. Such a beautiful thought and, yes an act of grace, to have a maple impart its’ wisdom and longevity to the infant who passes through its’ branches. Captured my imagination!