Trees As Sanctuary – A Poem

Looking at the Past

Tree Sanctuary © 2014 Bo Mackison

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life. ~ Herman Hesse

Trees As Sanctuary

1806, The People Build the Church

They press brick, kiln lime, raise walls, lay roofing,
paint murals, sculpt sacred ornamentation, build niches for the statues of the Saints.
They clear land, build fences, plant corn and wheat,
and from the priests’ cache of pods and seeds, they plant and then they tend
fruit orchards, nut trees, olive groves.
They learn the missionaries’ way.
They marry, raise children, care for their sick, weep for their dying, bury their dead.

1827, Weary, Ill, and Wary of Raiding Enemies

Many of the People wrap statuary in leathery strips of yucca,
bundled saints now cradled like newborn babes
protected from summer’s heat, shifting winds, monsoon storms,
from damage to their wooden limbs or painted robes or eyes of porcelain marbles.
The People walk north, leave the Tumacácori Mountains,
settle in a valley to the North, build another mission, settle in.

1848, Tumacácori Mission, Deserted in the Desert

No missionary priest leads his people crucifix in hand,
his carved cross held high, his silhouette a contrast to this blue bowl of sky.
No one gives signal to the last few of the Desert People
who abandon their homes, possessions, crops;
abandon their church, its stacks of brick adobe
with the limestone wash, white like angels’ wings;
now the church is pale apparition towering midst desert grasses, agave, mesquite
standing in the foreground of the mountains.

2016, A View through the Window

Open to the cool desert nights,
no roof for protection, no doors.
Only ruins remain and ruins they shall remain.
Window remnants frame the cottonwoods, green and tall,
that line the Santa Cruz River.

Spellbound, I walk to the water,
leafy branches arch a roof above my head,
provide spongy leaf-carpet for my weary feet.
Wisps of white cotton fluff, seeds of the future drift on a southwest breeze.

Trees as sanctuary.

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Posting a desert-related poem each day in April, National Poetry Month. Updated poems from my blog archives, new poems written as sacred practice, and selected, favorite poems from other poets.

Journal Notes

Sonoran Desert
West, beyond the terraced land of copper mines the earth coughs up mesquite and creosote,
layered gravels holding tight the bushes’ roots, thorn scrub this land is called,
or desert scrub, a swaying land, dizzying,
blinding to my eyes unaccustomed to the torrential whites
of desert light, swaying, undulating, until the scrub becomes desert, the cacti appear.

Look and see the mountains rising from sea-level-deserts to miles-high-tundra, scan the landscape, the topography,
fifty miles in the distance there are observatories on Kitt Peak.
I see white domes. 50 or more, astronomers from across the globe
gaze at the heavens from here.

Pale earth, such a pale terra cotta, a deeper red ocher,
burnt sienna, burnt umber – a Renaissance painter’s palette,
the minerals – Sonoran desert colors.

Sky paint? Sapphire blue,
not mineral but precious gem, deepest blue,
Pure blue, it carries my eye into infinity.

Distant Mountain

Distant mountains watch from their blue-grayed peaks,
peaks moored by centuries-old anchors, the desert sands,
lands rolling ridge over ridge, cracked by water-carved-arroyos.
There is hard to find but never forgotten beauty in these lands.

Mountains interrupt the repetitions of waves,
a woven landscape of constancy,
the earth remains the same until close inspection shows unsuspected diversity.
My mouth opens, my eyes widen, my senses awaken.

Rough edges burnished with desert varnish,
polished in black patina, countless layers of microscopic colonies,
millennial crusts cover mountain faces.

Ever present guardians play their roles, here
in the desert – silent cacti, arid plants,
grasses growing amidst the scattered sounds – calls, yips, whistles,
whispers, and yearnings, all carried far on the winds.
I stand in silence, the desert quiets.
I hear nothing, feel nothing

I breathe — slow inhales,
I breathe for the desert earth.

 

Posting a poem each day for the month of April in Honor of National Poetry Month.