THE DREAM TREE (A Poem)

Geneva Point Center, Lake Winnepesaukee, N.H.,
sketched July 1978 by Patricia Kelly

The above tree stunned me when I approached her. My sketch does no real justice to the tree. (The poem below comes closer, though it's not about the tree in the drawing.) I was delighted when the owners of the camp turned two of my tree drawings into greetings cards that they then sold in their on-site store. I had been at the camp offering creative writing classes. At the time the camp center was owned by The National Council of Churches in New York City, where I worked as a secretary and led a daily poetry workshop on lunch break.

Not only do I love trees in waking life, but they are companions in my dreams. As in the below poem, based on a dream I had in May of 1997:

THE DREAM TREE

I have no roots. No stories
of the Old World from the Polish
grandmother who scrubbed floors
to feed and educate her daughter,
her history held in a proud
compensating silence.

I have no roots but those I steal.
No cradling web of stories about
the mother dead as I turned ten,
my family's silence more final
than her dying.

I have no roots but those I steal
in dreams of the Irish father
and grandmother, the grandfather
and great-grandparents, who struggled
in vaudeville and commerce,
the Great Depression and two World Wars,
yet dropped only the rare fact
in the same few oft repeated stories,
leaving me to milk my dark intuitions
for sustenance.

I have no roots but those I steal
in dreams from trees:

My father, doubly transformed
by death and dream, guides me
to a clearing in the wood
where grows an enormous
softly glowing tree, at which
he gestures saying
"Look to your Mother."

Deeply awed, I inhale gratefully
of Her timeless silence.

* * * *

‘til next time, keep dreaming,

Roswila
[aka: Patricia Kelly]
****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****My other blog: ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL.