Halloween: "Above me rises a dead tree."

"Above me rises a dead tree."

Dr Abe V Rotor

"We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones." - Stephen King

Lady devotee Angie Tobias turns her attention to Mother Nature in the 

midst of today's massive destruction of the environment symbolized 

by this driftwood artwork made by the author for Lent 2024.

When the sky is gray and red in sorrow,

     the fields bare and dry all around,  

the sun beats hard on ev'ry levee and furrow;

     I wonder where I am and bound.

No shade to find comfort even for a while, 

     save a tree standing on a hill,

where some birds briefly rest and again fly,

     leaving me empty at the scene.   

I look up and wonder, "Is this Golgotha?"

     No sound, no breeze, but eerie

like I were in the heart of the Sahara;

     above me rises a dead tree. ~

Standing skeleton of mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla).

Lagro, QC, photo by the author, circa 1994

I have lost you forever,

Now a silhouette in the sky,

Spreading a gospel to remember,

For the mindless passerby.

You have lived half of your life,

Yet fullest at the Throne;

Earning it well with strife,

Where every seed is grown.

The birds now a flock,

The child a man;

You bid them all the luck,

And now they are gone.

In youth you sheltered me,

A thought I can't be free,

I atone for your brevity,

With a thousand and one tree.

           - AV Rotor, Light in the Woods 1994

"The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for your wits to grow sharper." - Eden Phillpotts