The Poet Tree has enjoyed a week of warm summer weather, a surprise gift, and a new crop of poems. Earlier in the week these lovely watercolors of hibiscus appeared like blossoms on the tree. To the talented and generous painter who shared this beauty full of light and dimension, we thank you!
We also created a new crop of poems including Laura Kasischke’s “Briefly” from her 2011 collection Space, In Chains. This poem begins with a list of quotidian “scrap[s] of beauty… – all shining accident and awe” and makes a surprising turn to a face at the end of a dream that is so real to the narrator it is as if the absent person is “alive again.” I found the poem to be a reminder of beauty and surprise in the everyday…if my eyes and heart are open, there are always brief glimpses, flashes of music, color, texture, and love.
As we prepare to join my parents at their lake cabin this week, we also created a special card for the Poet Tree that is a picture Doug drew from the end of the dock a few years ago. He used crayons to create the original. In honor of the “going to the woods” spirit, we paired it with the first line of Walden by Thoreau. Here’s to learning what life has to teach in all its “shining accident and awe.”
