Rod Hemsell, Auroville

Tree sight

1.

Shall we ask the trees the time,
Standing there silent and still?

Will they say we are early, or late?
Will they understand:

Our passing in time,
Their standing in time;

These branches of thought,
These words like leaves,

This being flowing in one stream?
Does our thinking mirror their dream?

“An endless procession of phenomenal forms,
White and diaphanous in the moonlight”

As they pass across our vision,
As we grasp them in our sight,

Do they feel us in their stillness?
Do they sense our destination?

Ie there any way to measure
This difference of nature,

The distance between the beginning and end
Of motion, light, stillness and the wind,

Time for standimng, and for passing,
Time for seeing, and for being, in light?

“We are dreams within dreams”Tree sight reflects the stream.

2.

An infinite
Array of leaves

Branching overhead
A net to catch the rain

Thought branches upward
To catch a drop of light

A measure time
Of stillness intervenes

Cascades of rain
Drench the leaves

Mind soars above
On luminous seas

Leaves, dripping with light
Thoughts, pulsating with light

3.

How strong the base must be.
Branches heavy with rain,
Yet you reach the sky.

4.

The unreality
Of all natural things

Ever changing
Ever the same

In the perceptive
Mind of zen, hokku-san

Out of everything one,
Out of one, everything

The logon sophon ciphered
By another ancient wisdom

The winter rain
In cessantly falling

Light into darkness
Out of darkness light

Natzre teaching erath
How she drains her power

Deep into the roots and soil
Slowly gathering weight

Bearing upward through time
Her fibrous masses that breathe

And heave heavenward
Towers of crystal power

Gossamer structures of sight
Pillars of marble, veins of gold

Hydrorcarbon galaxies
In a symphony of trees

Resonant skin, vibrant bone
Voicing the visible word

Chanting forth zhe fire of life
And perishing in the flame.