August 2018
Robert Knox
 rc.knox2@gmail.com
Bionote: ​​I am a Boston area writer (poetry, fiction, journalism). My novel about the origins of the Sacco and Vanzetti case, "Suosso's Lane," was published two years ago, and my second chapbook "Cocktails in the Wild" was published this spring by Unsolicited Press. The two poems about trees in this issue respond to Richard Powers' groundbreaking novel "The Overstory." They're also influenced, as was Powers, by Thoreau, who turns out to be very much a man for our season. 

This Tree
 
     "For you have five trees in paradise
     which do not change,
     either in summer or in winter
     and their lives do not fall
     He who knows them
     shall not taste of death."
                          -- the Gnostic gospel of Thomas

This tree
From Adam's garden grew
 
And fed a world of green plant
eaters, tiny shrews that one day grew
into a race of limber primates,
a hungry crew
that ate green earth down to the bones
 
Five trees grew in Adam's garden
that do not change their clothes for winter
And their tribe lives on forever...
I would have them in my garden
Would they keep me in their world?
 
Five trees grow in Paradise
You can find them in your homeland
Make for life a living garden
You can plant them in your soul
 
Trees will grant you life and living
Shelter from the winter storm
Trees will shade your flesh from burning
Leaves keep frozen fingers warm
 
Five trees keep the mind from turning
in the circles of despair
One tree for the mind's true balance
One to keep thee mindful there
 
One tree for the thinker deep
One to run and play where others creep
One to break the heart for doing
when the talkers only sleep
 
Five trees grow in wisdom's garden
Thomas and the saints long knew
In the wild ways of the old days
lay the places wise ones knew
 
Build the garden in your heart
Climb your tree of knowledge
Figure it with art
Rest there from your labors
Exercise your nature's wit
Among the trees the heart finds pleasure
There grows the vive!
that all lives treasure
 
In the shade of love we linger
Unforgotten is the meaning
Shade that's deeper than the light
among five trees that grow the spirit:
hunger, love, making, mind,
and a reasoned hand of might
  
 
 
 
 
Influence of Earth
 "Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink,
  taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth."                                                                                                                                                                                              --Thoreau
Build yourself a cathedral in the trees
Hear bluebells ring in "Campanula"
Hear the birds play in the mulberries
            (knowing that it's work for them)
Drink down the shade from roofs of leaf-warp
weaving ceilings for the sky
 
In its time each thing does flower
Lilies wait until July
Shade that heals us when the strong sun
Wakes buds designed for insect eyes
 
Spend the day in nature's garden
Visiting the homes of small things
Microscopic creatures feed us
We should eat our peck of dirt
Sunlight best in moderation
Shade light best when heat shocks hurt
 
Native lilies answer for it
When you wish to vary green
Many plants have blown their blossoms
Before the days grow long and mean
Now come flowers long in hiding
Growing green stuff, packing in
The food their kind stores long within
 
We enjoy the rose that's endless; Spirea, Iris,
Clematis clamors in its time
Azalea, tulip, poppies long gone
We have lived with them their prime
 
And the trees that show their colors
Dogwood, cherry, butterfly
We wait upon the bee balm's calling
hummingbirds spin wildly by
 
Birds crisscross the arbor flyways
Hunting food in sudden bursts
And the bees mob on hydrangea
Scalding days may do their worst
 
All that shines in morning shadow
Finds a way to persevere
When the vines climb up each morning
The flower of the year is here
 
 
 
 

Hair: The Reunion


In Salon Neo on Hancock Street
The ladies there cannot be beat
They till the soil of human hair
on flesh reclining in a chair
They chatter in a foreign tongue
You cannot tell the old from young
They know my name and trim my hair
And cover up what's not much there
 
Then to my garden I repair
With rakes and bags and clippers style
the shapes of vine and leafy plant,
such grassy fronds, such earthy hair: 
I do at home what they do there
And whisper words that trees enchant
© 2018 Robert Knox
Editor's Note:  If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to tell him or her. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is the beginning of community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -FF