- Aoife Reilly
Origins
“Live from the roots, learn from your leaves” sang the tree
silver branches snaked advice around the winding tributaries
of a beech against your skin would often sing
sonatas in wooden chimes, a four-part harmony of lucid bark holding you
in weaves of arms and tree limbs until you could settle
into your own seeds
There was a time you tried to rip up weeds by the leaf
grabbed at plants in their earth bodies, hunted humus
on the forest floor, rummaged round for young shoots-
you had to learn the hard way about gentleness and haste
And though it seemed strange, the time came to be guided
by those without face or voice, beings that live from the earth up
who wrapped your heart in the woods, eased your skin meet tree skin
helped you to hear how the land drinks water
Only there you could ask life about the things you think matter
all these measures of dark and light and if your love was worth
the cost of happiness, only in the sanctity of green
could you drop it all
in peace.