O Christ Cedar by Susan McCaslin
You among emerald drapery
from your wind-
stormed outpost
plank and plane
vertical-horizontal world pivot
sprung from coastal seed
humming core
flaking bark
woodpecker’s grail
growing a wilder carpentry
taller masonry
more commodious poem
Be in us the world’s resinous heart
hung in a spackled sky—
forest green
hoist and balance
equipoise and reach
sylvan singer song
Susan McCaslin, author of Demeter Goes Skydiving (University of Alberta Press, 2011), initiated the Han Shan Poetry Project in November of 2013, a union of the arts and activism to save an ancient rainforest in Langley, British Columbia. http://www.susanmccaslin.ca
Artist Stasja Voluti generously allowed me to reconfigure and manipulate her photographs of cedar trees and ‘things cedar’ including crows visiting cedars. To learn more about her work visit: http://talonbooks.com/meta-talon/surrealism-in-text-and-image-a-conversation
Nest and Three Eggs of Cardinal in Cedar Tree photographed by W. L. McAtee in 1905 as part of the series Birds of the Vicinity of the University of Indiana.