Friday, January 6, 2023

Tree Worship is a Thing

Indeed, as my friend Duo Dickinson points out:
tree worship is a thing!

By Day

By Night

Calligram
by James Merrill (1926 – 1995)

Battenburg Lace Angel

Wildlife

Souvenirs

Heirlooms

Siblings

And underneath . . . presents!

3 comments:

  1. https://www.facebook.com/DillonSkyeCo/posts/pfbid02Zx14qtNKoLTC43ys95niP1rg5Tzd7Bq8UAuPXXK4KyV4Z5UA5eYaGmxnGs2w4AFl

    Q: Tree still up?

    My brother Bruce: "yep...planned to take it down on Epiy, but life got in the way. Now it's ten days later and I still haven't got around to it."

    Me: "That’s what I like to hear!"

    Sharon T. B. "I wait till the Three Kings show up, too. But they never help me!!!!! I got all mine down last weekend, though."
    https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=6491650030864012&set=a.749132405115832

    ReplyDelete
  2. "The Christmas Tree"
    by Cecil Day Lewis

    Put out the lights now!
    Look at the Tree, the rough tree dazzled
    In oriole plumes of flame,
    Tinselled with twinkling frost fire, tasselled
    With stars and moons - the same
    That yesterday hid in the spinney and had no fame
    Till we put out the lights now.
    Hard are the nights now:
    The fields at moonrise turn
    to agate,
    Shadows are cold as jet;
    In dyke and furrow, in copse and faggot
    The frost's tooth is set;
    And stars are the sparks whirled out by the north wind's fret
    On the flinty nights now.
    So feast your eyes now
    On mimic star and moon-cold bauble;
    Worlds may wither unseen,
    But the Christmas Tree is a tree of fable,
    A phoenix in evergreen,
    And the world cannot change or chill what its mysteries mean
    To your hearts and eyes now.
    The vision dies now
    Candle by candle: the tree that embraced it
    Returns to its own kind,
    To be earthed again and weather as best it
    May the frost and the wind.
    Children, it too had its hour – you will not mind
    If it lives or dies now.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKKIhz-3jnw

    ReplyDelete
  3. "Taking Down the Tree"
    by Jane Kenyon

    "Give me some light!" cries Hamlet's
    uncle midway through the murder
    of Gonzago. "Light! Light!" cry scattering
    courtesans. Here, as in Denmark,
    it's dark at four, and even the moon
    shines with only half a heart.

    The ornaments go down into the box:
    the silver spaniel, My Darling
    on its collar, from Mother's childhood
    in Illinois; the balsa jumping jack
    my brother and I fought over,
    pulling limb from limb. Mother
    drew it together again with thread
    while I watched, feeling depraved
    at the age of ten.

    With something more than caution
    I handle them, and the lights, with their
    tin star-shaped reflectors, brought along
    from house to house, their pasteboard
    toy suitcases increasingly flimsy.
    Tick, tick, the desiccated needles drop.

    By suppertime all that remains is the scent
    of balsam fir. If it's darkness
    we're having, let it be extravagant.

    https://www.thenationalbookreview.com/features/2020/4/22/review-the-poetry-of-jane-kenyon-who-died-tragically-young-25-years-ago

    ReplyDelete