Linda Crate: Poems

the trees held me

i hug trees,
and i feel their kindness;

i wonder if they are
sometimes too forgiving
like my mother

or do they hold grudges
like me and the crows?

do they feel a sense

of wonder when they witness
sunlight or moonlight or shades
between;

do they feel cool or warm
or joy?

imagine the tree that is now
a guitar or violin,
do they ever get used to being
away from the forest?

do they ever beg for their
mother only to find she’s been
turned into a book or a grandfather’s
rocking chair?

i hope trees know how
much i love them
simply for being who they are,
i remember the soft needled pines
who sheltered me when i was
young and scared and aching;
they never asked for anything just
held me in their soft nest of safety.

every whisper of comfort

he left in the summer,
and i felt the wrath and heat
of the angry rain;

but autumn rescued me
spilled over me new colors
i didn’t know i needed
to have until they reached out
and held me in their soft whisper—

then the pain of his betrayal
subsided,

and the pain his name held
me suspended in for
months finally was quiet;

i could stand in myself and
my magic once more as the
sun seeded promises of hope
in my hair and autumn let
her leaves dance around me in
every whisper of comfort.