Living Tree Poetry

Always the growing,
the greening, the running over.

Like a river in flood
the green can’t be contained
but covers everything, in time.

The bare-limbed winter branches,
the trees divested of leaves
now under snow,

to them will come the rounding
returning seasons.

The sun, like a switch flicked on,
or a smile’s effect upon a child,
will conduct again the annual budding.

And the green will be shook out,
drawn out from cupboards like the exchanging
of winter quilts.

And the land again will turn to its
singing season.

The buds and sap start stirring,
the seeds send shoots
from the earth.

Yes, its almost as though we can hear
the green before it comes,
a dream awaiting clothing to take shape.

Yes, what is always certain,
is the green,

how unchecked it will extend out to fill
the empty space,
that perhaps green is the colour we’ve been given,

that turning in every direction,
we might see how the earth’s predisposition
for growth,

reflects the heart’s ever dreaming
waiting for the sun to turn a switch.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
December 2019

Fire of the Holy Spirit,
life of the life of every creature,
holy are you in giving life to forms.
Rivers spring forth from the waters
earth wears her green vigour.
~ Hildegard of Bingen

O most honoured Greening Force,
You whose roots in the sun;
You who lights up, in shining serenity, within a wheel
that earthly excellence fails to comprehend.

You redden like the dawn
and you burn: flame of the sun.
~ Hildegard of Bingen, Causae et Curae