Monday, 22 August 2022

Dialogue with the Trees - Epic Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop



Dialogue with the Trees

by Robin Ouzman Hislop

 

the ghost of the forest speaks          

 

ice melts         rivers run dry       what comes after   the glaciers      north melts             south

burns   lungs of the world gasp    heart of the world

 

 

ebbs

 

blood from plant to sea

withers in the roots

 

 

any person's voice that echoes here

 

the forest emulates     an orchestration          a multi nature of affects          a multi

nature of perspectives            a point of view becomes a person           flesh enters

the forest         a lovers embrace         a consummation

 

 

as well as

 

the phantom predator

in the shadows lurks

as its prey stalks the sky

 

 

sky wind &  leaves poised                to

 

forest and sea breathe     the nature of nature      a history of ice and fire   stars collapse                       

suns burn out     black holes bounce        super novas explode                planets implode                      churned through the mill of existence     to spawn      a molecule of life  an instant in

infinity      a quantum of eternity

 

echoes

 

as the forest of the universe

tumbles into metamorphosis

O flesh

what is the nature of nature

 

 

then O jaguar moon come 

 

stand push pull lift press    (proprioceptive)       stillness stills on the  jaguar moon

on the soft prowling night         paw padded through the stars      in your eyes

the forest's lustre glows          moon mind        running sleek as night       upon the

shores bounding    break as you leap between       us through us         jaguar moon             

by the waters we listen        to your feet on these same

 

same

 

shores where we meet open

sky fall sky open sky fall sky

in the many mingling throng

 

 

in the many mingling throng we come       

 

time paints the sky beneath the skin             we begin in the furthest star     that blinks

in the heart  of  the forest         (here) where (i) stand still with time          wherever it

blows    the ice age comes       the ice age goes         we rise we fall        over with the

 

 

                                                            together with sky                                                             

 

we the malignant we              the magnificent munificence

 

 

chorus to the mingling throng it does          

 

they have built their concrete jungles    on sand      we follow    led on our brain                

your brain           there is no final moment                 in the dust

 

 

thus spoke the tree

 

 

even as the planet

fades we knew you from before you

came  that you cannot know us more

 

 

an outlaw's forest's beserk voices                 /

 

where is your woo(r)(l)d – va(r)nished      wilderness is a truth you cannot share

the scorched desert the arctic waste      we did not understand              you’d been

driven back on the line    our oracles     do you remember them at all      i’ll give

 

 

         i’ll go  now & ask for your return        

 

to return my heart to the jaguar moon

nature is both in her entangled state

from the wilderness to the wilderness

I summon you my children’s children

 

 

an oracle to the conference of persons thus spoke            

 

you are but a semblance       at flow in your blood      which is your end     your rot

is not as ours          let us capture your semblance     in our resemblance         & we

will return you   to the stars like the rain & the wind we bespeak         we are your

 

underworld your overworld

 

you pass between us

either as a shade

or as a living breath of blood

 

 

a trace of Sapiens     

 

O forest long ago        we cut out your           ancient heart  & burnt it at the stake

& built a timber fort   as we rafted with you across the seas      & cast you down

 

 

stream to the mill

 

where's  'la refugia' for us

in the nooks & crannies

after the apocalypse?



a poet interrupts to ph(r)ase in


three pigeons      play in the twigs      of a swaying bough     as if in embrace         

saccades entangle       time leaps       time bounces  

 

seen

 

 from afar a solitary blackbird

waves to & fro on a high

branch extending into the sky

do not fear – but do fear

the human dart to your heart

 


the darkness

 

where i dream of you beneath my skin     as my blood flows back to the forest

& the wind in the leaves breathes come in

 

 

a thousand green tongues

 

where each bespeaks each other at once

their death outlives our death

they do not fear death as we do but only us

here beneath our green sheen breathing

 

 

who asks in what lost presence do we really stand           

 

downhill here in the musk      wafting the silence in the fern       beyond

the tolling of the bell    forest fir (once oak)         ravelled wintry spaces  

airs    hues of blue     hovering mists    clouds streaked   grey purple   as

 

 

if  it will o' the wisps

 

 

a smoking mirror

riddled riddled

in the glimmerings

of shadow secrets

 

 

where hanging bowers of canopies

smashed acorns on the dirt road    

      

don't take offense      at the writ served  upon them   majestic monsters          discoverers       

 


across the desert dunes

 


branches wafting ribbons dulcet waving arms

flowing as if a Mayday opening into the game

malignant plague roams the empty streets

crying bring out your dead

 

our  myriad ramifications  

 

resemblances        music of affinities      reflect anti reflect     gravitate entropy     

before we began      in our entangled dawn           

 

 

enframed in

 

the language of things

in trees  plants  flung foliage

scattered bloom   berries   bracken

listening to their listening talk

 

 

the voices of death in life   life in death      

 

before you came    after you're gone    we remain     nothing  remains but remaining

breaking with it 's (breaking breaking breaking)       mirage of green (out of of of of)

 

speak

 

trees majestic or monstrous

their litter of dead wood

like bones (bones strewn bones bones)

       strewn ruins of the dykes

      a deluge of rocks    

fallen to (fallen to fallen to to to)  

 

 

an overgrown tomb (out of range range range)    its image left in doubt

 

its moment a bonfire      heap of antiquity         where insects scuttle forlorn

next to me stood a dog       we went for a walk in the wood     all the people

 

 

nodded & smiled

 

 

the world went up in flame

everybody was  up in flame

next to me stood a dog

the people  i met nodded

 

 

on the borderline wending you came blending

 

winding in         down by the meer     next to the fencing         the fenced in

fencing    down by      the border line      the meer    next to  the green    the

fenced in        fenced off green           down by          the meer                who

 

how in less than 200 years after

 

 our disappearance

from the world

nature would remove

      all trace of human civilisation    

 

 

the great wall of China a final remnant     would probably be covered     

 

in lichen & fungi with only        the head      of the Dragon      in the sea      

its back in the mountains        & its tail in the desert  / i wish   /    i was   /  

 

a bird   & could fly  /  to the hill  /    looking at the   /  

 

unthinkable crime /    so late /  in the day  /  

quite an   /  indescribable crime /   

against  /    all time /   

without making /    predictions  /

 just   vaporizations   / about voices   /  

i hear   / there   / here /

 

 

then showers of dust sap into evanescent waves           of goodbye to tomorrow            

 

as music flowers from pheromone clouds      and day marches on stilts  the ground

shrouding abundance   where empathy's core    

 

together words seeped in

 

incandescent landscapes

burst with abstraction viewpoints

trickling and diaphanous

to blink whilst nothingness

lingers trembling space

in the running order of chaos

an abyss of greenery

 

 

the ghost of the forest speaks

 

heaven reflects            the surface of all things          and the forest breathes

life into the ocean       the forest of the sea bleeds    but does not breathe    

the forest of the earth      breathes but does not bleed

 

 

O  blood heart beat the roll of the drum    the rumble of thunder

 

our roots veins run into earth

 entangle with the mycelium

entangle but also strangle

the ocean

dialogue with the trees

 

we withstand               the fury           of the elements

                                                                                                

 

 

spring dazzles           

 

 

as if a tabula rasa      

 

 

we are their catharsis                       their

 

metamorphosis           even time is a wanderer          that returns to the forest        

we burn       we freeze      we drink                we bleed          we harvest death          

& shriek aloud at it     you are ours who make believe      all else is mockery

 

                                                                                                         

experience as young 

 

 experience  as old      

 it's not the same         it's a

random number   lost even to itself

 

 

everything struggles without purpose          

 

the only purpose that exists is to share the abundance of the moment          which

is lost again and again which returns again and again                perhaps for

you there is a oneness to the moment in its abundance          but it is not really so       

everything has its absolute limit        its inexorable finitude               time is only

the forest         there is no such thing as perfection      we eat nature nature eats us             

praise be to the jaguar moon

 

                                                                                                  

the spirits of the dead are in your roots

 

you clone the world but what  alikes

the like of an orchestration

its nature of nature   

its point

of view

 

 

the meadow and the pack     the owl's screech    the predator and the prey

 

the pulse of the planet         what choice        what chance            time swoops

arrival after its departure entangled in a moment                the lichen devours

the rock           the forest transforms the lichen            & we summon the spin

of the planet    in a swirl of galaxies to feed a star                 our pigmentation

paints the maps of eternity     here in the core     our proprioceptive presence

 

 

saccades alight

 

in mirages that evaporate

only to reappear      hauntings in a veil of

memories        beckonings and belongings

 

 

we emulate

 

through the seasons time's becoming     time is the forest and it's wanderer therein

 

                                                                                                              

 

                                                                          on this

 

pixel patch of existence

spring dazzles as if a tabula rasa

praise be to the jaguar moon




Robin Ouzman Hislop is a retired TEFL teacher and translator who lives in Avila Spain and Yorkshire UK. He is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com . He is author of several poetry book collections and has translated from Spanish the poetry works of Guadalupe Grande and Carmen Crespo. You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author & https://poetrylifeandtimes.com, which features mostly his video poems and translated authors. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

Robin Ouzman Hislop's poetics cultivate a relationship between ecological & mindbody processes and experimental work. He's co-authored translations of contemporary Spanish poets into English and written and performed numerous audio visual video poems.

 

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