There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees
by Sharmagne Leland-St. John

In those nightly voyages,
I sense the pungent scent
of aged-stands of lodge pole pines,
the towering aromatic old-growth red cedars,
the wood-chippy aroma
of fresh-cut Douglas fir and western hemlock,
the smoke from the early autumn fires
in the sparse log cabins
dotting the terrain of my dream world.

Whitetail deer populate these alternate universes
eagles in aeries high up in the treetops
keen and cry in a cloudless sky.

There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees
a sycamore devoid of leaves
with priest's black cassocks
hanging from naked branches
blowing in the breeze.

There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees
and orchards echoing birdsong...
the weeping willows
and the pepper trees of my childhood.

The stately pines in my grandfather's
front yard on South St. Andrews Street,
its sprawling lower branches
touching the ground—
a place to hide two little girls
as they played house,
safe from the stone lions
that defended the sweep of front steps.

The children concealed
in the needled nest of imagination.

There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees.




 

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