Ode to a Maple Tree (day 1758)

Dear Maple, so sweet
Your heart is my nectar
To warm on the cold days
To taste and to glow.
But that’s not all
Of your marvelous fall,
For yellows and browns
And greens and oranges
And burgundies and maroons
And suns golden hues
Shall greet me in splendor
From your largest of limbs
From your gloriously iconic leaves
And float to the ground
In a rain of pure gold
For all to behold
And bow to your throne.
And in spring
When your life shall return
I anxiously watch each blossoming bud
Counted with pure delight
From the ground where I await
In the birth of your spread
In the mirth of your stead
And smile
As I enjoy what beautiful view
Always awaits by your thick
And porous and clunky trunk.

large maple tree looking out over lake

Pull My Arrow (day 1737)

I travel to lonely points of inactivity;
Challenge even the iron hearts,
Let my fruit fall all about me here
And lose my heart to a beating drum.
I crawl down to the setting sun;
Steep slope and I’m bleeding mom,
Hands gnarled, so let me gently down
Back to my cold and lonely ground.
I’ve swept out the tangled mess;
Chilling webs of my sweet duress,
If an Angel should come right now
Pull my arrow to shoot her down.

Pull My Arrow by Ned Tobin

Settling In (day 1726)

I don’t quite remember the day that it happened
But two by two they fell
Two by two the large trees that had circled my soul
Started thundering and crashing and heaving and falling.
And I looked up.
I craned my neck and looked at the new gap
Projecting sunlight this way and that,
Streaming little bits of another world
And catching particulate matter suspended in mid air.
My footsteps stopped.
My heart beat as my ears slowly identified the noises
I had so tirelessly huffed away,
Keeping a pace to get somewhere I didn’t know
And didn’t even have a reason to get to there.
So I stopped.
As it all came crashing down and whispers screamed louder,
As honeysuckles sprouted and ivy reached,
As leaves crunched and blossoms bloomed I stopped,
And that’s when I settled in.

Thanking The Season (day 1605)

Did you design the skies?
Did you place heaven floating
Amidst autumn leaves
And fleeting burning skies?
Did you button up cold birds
With warm woolly vests,
And marvelous plumage?
Did you gather piles of dead leaves
To spring board a crash landing?
Did you harvest pumpkins
Each of unique size and shape
To make my summer heart
Shift into darker hues of gold?
Well then, thank you.

20151013 - Fungii - Ned Tobin

That Fun (day 1582)

“I’m not that fun”
Said the crescent moon
That wept loudly
Amidst autumn’s leaves
Spread carelessly perfect
On an empty yard
Sitting aimlessly awkward
With such high hopes.
And then thy heart stripped.
Forsooth, a voice sounded;
To gasp, even just for a brief moment
The complexities no shadows
Could reveal.