The Treekeeper's Tale


    The Treekeeper's Tale


    I have set up house in the hollow trunk of a giant redwood.
    My bed is a mat of pine needles. Cones drop their spirals

    on my face as I sleep. I have the usual flying dreams.
    But all I know when I wake is that this bark is my vessel

    as I hurtle through space. Once, I was rocked in a cradle
    carved from a coast redwood, its lullabies were my coracle.

    I searched for that singing grove and became its guardian.
    There are days when the wind plays each tree

    like a new instrument in the forest-orchestra.
    On wild nights mine is a flute. After years of solitude

    I have started to hear its song. I lie staring at the stars
    until the growth rings enclose me in hoops -

    choirs of concentric colours, as if my tree is remembering
    the music of the spheres. And I almost remember speaking

    my first word, how it flew out of my mouth like a dove.
    I have forgotten how another of my kind sounds.


    Chandelier-Tree


    I find myself staring at the spaces between
    fronds, where pure blue plumes appear,
    the air painting itself on my eye.

    And I see how the trunk doesn't end
    where a person can climb, but continues
    to the redwood's true crown, sky-feathers

    piercing the stratosphere, blue forest
    on blue, some white with lace frills
    of finest cirrus, before the wide canopy

    of night, its invisible leaves
    suddenly alert with stars — how they are
    glimpses of the tree of light.


    Exiled Elm


    My comet-roots trail earth through the dark,
    my trunk swarms with homeless insects

    and from my starry crown seeds
    scatter, searching for new worlds.


    Creation of the Birds


    after the paintingby Remedios Varo

    I paint birds from starlight.
    The harder my art, the stronger their wings -

    solar or lunar feathered, iris-barbed.
    The ultrasonic syrinx,

    drawn from my violin-brush,
    starts to hum when I'm lonely.

    I release them while still wet, their songs
    liquid and light, not meant for base ears.

    Even the nests they weave in our old forests
    are harmonies — temporary mouths for our trees.

    Restless, they embark on great migrations,
    beat against the glass of earth's cage.


    A Dawn Trail


    Each day we come earlier, searching for that hush
        no freeway hum will shatter,

    when the morning wind blows all sound
    into the next creek

    and even our footsteps are muffled
        by a soundproof carpet.

    Deeper into the silence we notice the flutter
        of dropping needles

    soft as feathers from the sky, and a pause
    in which we sense a presence,

    where we begin to see ourselves as part of the forest,
        the thought emerging

    like a white doe who keeps a shy distance,
        at home in the heart of the grove,

    before language, before the human tongue
        took root.


    Portrait of a Coast Redwood Forest with
    Mandolin


    When the first ray pierces my canvas
    I breathe on its shaft, make solar music.
    It's in these early hours of a painting's life
    that my palette becomes a mandolin, its thumb-hole

    a soundhole plucked by brushes. My eye
    darts from foliage to fog. I try to paint
    the deep notes of these ancients,
    how the bass rises from their roots

    and spirals round their rings
    before bursting into saturated light.
    There is lake-black and mud-brown
    a loon-shape brings up from the river bed

    like primordial clay; red dots to raise
    from drums of resonating bark.
    There are greys to draw down from the clouds
    like masks for the tree-gods' faces,

    lightning to cast over their crowns.
    The way they stir just before a storm,
    the crack that opens in the sky — my first view
    of the thunder woods in their electric groves.


    Uprooted Redwood


    My crown once swayed above the stratosphere like a raft,
    each pine-needle tuned to the stars.

    You can hear my leaves humming
    an infinite green fugue. It's as if dawn depends on it,

    for ladders of light to be lowered through violet fog.
    The sun paints an improvised harmony — crescents,

    splashes, zigzags, a lemon lagoon. A blue blot explodes,
    leaving a crater in the sky, cascades of rose roots.

    Morning lies in the gorge, raw as ripped wood.


    The University among the Redwoods,
    Santa Cruz


    They're up there — the students, in their high halls,
    sleeping among the redwoods, in the university of leaves.

    The sky is a blue-bound volume of flickering
    white pages they wake to — a morning mist
    of evaporating inks. All night, a black bible
    big as the universe writes star-scriptures.

    The sequoias are illuminated manuscripts
    through which to glimpse stories of our sun.

    Their branches hum as tree-scholars take the morning
    staircase down. On every floor they pass

    another library of light, upper storeys where birds
    sing hosannas, the hymn of canopy cascades,

    sky-pools for the clouded salamander, the great
    hanging gardens of the treetops. As the students

    descend, they become heavier, they stumble
    down the steps, for they have come to the middle region

    where needles start to hiss as the breezes hush,
    the zone of knotholes where stars have nested

    in the night-tree's swaying mast. To the lower trunk
    where scrolls are ash in smouldering fire-caves.

    They crawl past zones of silence, those sawn-through
    stadium-stumps, and they go to class.


    Treesitter


    Silence has small sounds I have learnt to listen to with my skin —
    the sap's slow rise up three hundred feet of xylem. Here,

    where the winds make harps of needle-plumes,
    morning bathes me in musical mists. Below me, birds

    stretch their wings in shivering shoals of green amber.
    Beneath them, the fluted trunk plunges to an earth

    I have not stepped on for two years. The first few months
    of my treesit they tried scaring me out with choppers,

    stopped me from sleeping with floodlights, air-horns, whistles.
    But my mind grew a fireproof bark. One by one,

    I have watched the great trees fall all around mine in the grove.
    What I remember most is the moment the chainsaw

    is switched off — that different silence, as if each
    of my neighbour's leaves is holding its breath

    before releasing a gasp — a trembling that spirals down
    to the cut. Years reel as its rings just stand there shaking.


    Nature Singer


    The trees taught me to sing like a bird, pitch
    my voice so high the notes nest in the canopy
    before flying into your ears.

    I can mimic the loon. My tremolo settling on Eel River
    causes ripples to quiver and fan out -
    a drowned soul could reappear from one of those rings
    to haunt the attentive listener.

    At full force, my voice can put out a flame.
    I have learnt to do this from the mighty redwood
    which knows how to hold fire without burning.
    The lightning bolt strikes its heart and shatters.

    Since I was a child I have heard the trees talking,
    a green thunder that could crack bones
    but descends softly, like falling leaves.


    Osprey Nests


    Sticks, seaweed, crosshatchings and slashes.
    Toy sailboats, doormats, discarded rubber teat holders
    from milking machines, TV antennas,
    hula hoops, fish nets, rubber boots,
    a broken bicycle tyre — worthless
    unless put to use the birds agree.
    A book called Lucille, Bringer of Joy;
    various dried carcasses, derelict clothing.
    A fondness for the shiny and artificial:
    the fluorescent stuffing of an Easter basket
    and large green garbage bags
    that fly like flags off pirate ships.
    Prize to the pair at Chapin Beach
    who added a naked Barbie doll to their northeast wall.
    At least a half dozen elaborate tunnels.
    Sheer mass, dainty perfectionism.
    More tall than wide,
    weighing close to a ton.
    Sanctuary word aeries
    built higher each passing year.
    Climb up into one for the winter — they support a man.


    Redwood Canopy Explorer


    I hang in the spaces between canopies
    and when I pause for breath it hits me -
    the total silence. Even my mental chatter
    vanishes. Just me and these ancient beings
    and the rain they filter from the fog
    dripping on my glistening skin.
    I glide in a wordless mist. All that holds me
    to the spinning planet is a little rope.
    I start to soar as if the needles sprouted feathers,
    my muscles tensed for flight. And when I land
    it's on a hanging garden of fern-mats
    ninety metres high, to kneel on its altar.
    Every dip into the chalice of a sky-pool
    yields an unknown species. Everything is dawn-new.


    Creation of the Trees


    after the painting Harmony by Remedios Varo

    I set the musical stave on my desk,
    strung notes on its metal wires,
    using fossils, shells, prisms, as quavers

    and semiquavers, trying to make music
    from matter. I summoned treasures
    from the chest for so long

    I thought it was bottomless, the source
    of the rivers of sound that drove my world.
    I longed for harmonies to grow the trees,

    so the songs of their light would flood my studio.
    The muse even lent a hand. She emerged
    from the peeling wallpaper, her vellum-

    wrinkled fingers moved the notes
    until a faint prelude crept out.
    The air vibrated like branches in a breeze.
    I blew through the clef to add my breath
    and the trees became a hovering forest.
    I composed
    falling rain, dew-drip, the budding leaves.

    Afterlives


    The Second Husband


    After what feels like two thousand years
        I find you under the permafrost.
    I dig and dig until your twelve frozen horses
        spring up in their red felt masks and ibex horns.
    You must have ridden each one to heaven

    in your high headdress with its gold foil frieze
        of Celestial Mountains, your crest
    of winged snow leopards and antlered wolves
        with eagle tines. When you ask me to stay
    I know this is the afterlife.


    Two Golden Eagles


    Saykhan


    Holding Saykhan is unexpected as meeting you
    after all those years on my own.
    Here in the Tien Shan where it's minus twenty degrees,
    with this sudden weight on my gauntlet,
    I peer into tawny eyes, see the wolves he's killed,
    swooping onto their napes to knock them down.
    If he draws blood he'll attack but the glove
    protects me from his talons and he bears
    those jesses that bind him to me.
    If he took off he'd lift me with him -
    the way we rise into sheer air above the rolling steppe of our bed,
    our wing-feathers icicles
    while we glide through snow's embroidered sheets,
    our faces cataracts of light.


    Kukai

    This time it's you holding a female golden eagle
    and I'm her, gripping your hand through the gauntlet,
    my hood pulled off as if for the hunt.
    You've propped me on your arm for a photo
    where we'll always be together.
    You've noted my beak, my two-inch claws,
    how piercing my eyesight is,
    and how at home I am in this biting cold.
    For the moment I trust you, even when
    your fingers feel my wings, so that although tethered,
    I start flying in my mind.
    And when you follow on horseback to claim
    my quarry, I let you believe it's yours.
    I wait until you allow me to feed.


    Frozen Horses


    Twelve frozen corpses — one for each lonely year
    sealed under the Altai Desert.

    You came with your pickaxe and hacked them out.
    You looked in my eyes and saw the graves inside -

    twelve sacrificed horses with red saddles
    and gold bridles, braided tails and tassels.

    Tenderly, you thawed their birch bark beds
    and proud manes, their reindeer masks

    and antlers for flying to the after-world
    from that Iron Age pit.

    Unearthing my solitude, you glimpsed
    its silver coat and pearl hooves, its pricked ears.


    Siberian Ice Maiden


    On my table is a mutton tail,
    a bronze knife with wolf handle, jug of khoumis,
    a translucent yak horn bowl.

    My six horses lie near, their coats still
    that chestnut sheen. They face east
    in their gilt saddles with felt cushions
          stuffed with stag-hair,
    bridles covered with gold leaf.

    My coffin is carved from a single larch log
    and curves like a cradle. Four copper nails
    seal it shut, and on the sides, leather reindeer fly.

    Open my lid to a block of milky white ice.
    Dismayed my cocoon is opaque,
    your pace slackens.

    Melt me. Heat buckets with blowtorches to pour
    boiling water into my casket,
          cup by careful cup,
    until the scent of coriander is released.

    At night you dream of gouged eyes,
    the sockets stuffed with fur.

    Each day you stand in freezing water
    as the smell of wet wool gets stronger
    and you glimpse gold flecks in the ice.

    Your arms move as if in trance
    as I emerge from my two-thousand-year
          sleep,
    curled on my left side,
    my cheek nestled against the pillow.

    Only patches of my face remain.

    My hair has been shaved, a hole cut in my skull

    to insert incense and pine cones
          instead of a brain,
    the gash sewn with sinew.

    I am alone in my Tree of Life headdress
          on its larch frame.
    Tien Shan snow leopards, gold birds, a griffin,
          perch on its branches.
    A quiver and bow hang from the apex.

    Pull back the marten fur blanket to view my necklace
          of carved camels.
    Lift the blouse from my shoulder to find flesh
    tattooed a deep midnight blue -
    a frieze of deer-horses with blossoming horns.

    My hands are intact,

    the thumbs dyed with swirling indigo antlers that break into flower
          when you touch them.

    The curves of my breasts are soft
          as the day I was buried,
    my skin yellow from tannins.

    Behind my bent knees a red pouch
    holds my brass mirror, horsehair brush, iron eye-pencil.
    You trace long incisions in my back, belly and limbs
          where my organs and muscles were removed,
    peat, bark and sedge packed in their place.

    That early spring, when I died young on the Pasture of Heaven
    I was wearing this crimson blouse of wild silk,
    this thick wool and camel hair skirt,
    white felt stockings, a belt,
    these still supple thigh-high riding boots to protect my skin
          from chaffing against the saddle -
    all made it
          through the centuries unscathed.

    I was preserved until the ground thawed enough
    to bury me in the Altai, high up
    where only ibex climb and eagles nest
          so I could reach the afterlife
    on the backs of my horses.

            Now
    I am displayed in this museum, my clothes
    and sacred ornaments on mannequins behind glass,
          my body naked.


    Salmon


    The moon was coming up one side of the river
    and the sun was setting on the other
    when a huge salmon leapt

    from the shock of whitewater. On his left flank
    his scales shimmered with moonlight,
    on his right they blazed with sun.

    He seemed to hang there in the air
    in pyjamas of pearl and ash,
    half a wedding-suit of rosefire.

    I thought of you asleep in the cabin
    and rushed home to look
    as sunset's last rays costumed your back

    through one window, and the full moon
    robed your chest through the other. You jumped
    as if you'd leapt out of yourself

    and were heading upstream. For a moment
    you hung there, half out of your skin,
    your body lost in the shadows.


    Baby Moon


    We've hung a baby moon in a birdcage
    from our bedroom ceiling.

    We climb a silver birch ladder
    to feed her star gruel.

    She cries a lot, wants the window left open
    so a breeze will rock her.

    Each month she grows thin and vanishes.
    When she's full, her light floods our bed.

    We lie under her like two squid,
    our skins flickering with seas.


    Atlas Moth


    This giant atlas moth's broad wings
    could be the map of China.

    Here are two Great Walls. And there
    on the Manchurian tip of each forewing

    are dragon heads to scare off predators.
    But what are those windows in the map,

    where crystal scales let in the light?
    As if earth's skin has windows

    and at certain times of the evening
    they open. The newly emerged atlas

    perches on my hand, and it trembles -
    like a new world, warming up for its first flight.


    Slipper Orchids of China


    At the foot of Yellow Mountain I find a slipper orchid
    crouching like a toad.

    No three inch golden lotus, the pouch is smaller,
    flecked maroon-black like a Ming Dynasty grave shoe -

    So many empty moccasins from women quiet
    as petals, released from their bonds.


    Hieroglyph Moth


    When the white ermine wings
    opened at night

    like a book of frost
          smoking in the dark,

    I understood the colours of vowels
    painted on moth fur -

    the black, red, saffron signs
    of a new language.

    Antennae grew from my forehead,
    my tongue was restless in its chrysalis.

    I felt lift-off
          as if my bones had melted.

    I stepped out into the snow -

    not even an exoskeleton to protect me
    in this strange country.


    Escape


    I pushed headfirst into the light
    through the nine circles of your cervix,

    then rested, my face free of you.
    You gripped my shoulders.

    You were a stone I had to crawl out of.
    But there was this air I wanted to breathe,

    clouds of it floating in the colour-room
    where cold voices cut my skin.

    I must have been tunnelling for months,
    planning escape-routes

    in those new mazes of my brain.
    There was a hole in my head

    through which I could hear the stars singing.
    The seal over my lips cracked

    as I tried to sing back.
    Angels drew out my legs

    and washed you off me.
    I was not yet your daughter. You

    would never be my mother.
    Those threats you whispered

    as I lay helpless inside you
    were in no mother tongue.

    The moment my feet left you
    I started to worship the world.


    Moon Moths (in the Day Room)


    She is just out of the cocoon of childhood,
    her colours still wet,
    when I bring the luna chrysalids.

    I thread them into rows,
    tie them over her scarred wrists.
    They rattle when we gently shake them.

    Only my mother can wear them -
    moon charms are too dangerous
    to be worn by the sane.

    Only she can slit the silk cages
    and draw out the cherubs that have died
    during the great transformation,

    their bullet-bodies closed,
    their antennae bent back
    over leather wing-stubs.

    Those moths that have survived
    take only a flash to emerge.
    How she loves to see them

    grow there on her palms,
    from tiny flaps to gold archangels
    with hind tips fluttering like comets.

    She gazes at the quivering beings
    as if holding her soul. For once
      her hands stop shaking.