tree-silence

weekly poem | on letting go and learning to be like the trees

But First Dear Reader, A Note to You:

Another week, another poem. How are all of you feeling? To be honest, I’m feeling disoriented by the pace of everything around me. The emails, the notifications, the traffic. Maybe the world moves too fast, maybe I’m just a high strung person.

Confession: for years, I’ve felt a nagging sense that I’m ill-equipped to be in this world.

Why do I need hours to decompress between things! Why do I waste so much time ambling around! Why do I wake up with anxiety droning in my ear! Why am I not a go-getter! How do I fix it?!

But off late, I can feel the prickle of this thought fading.

I turned 26 last month, and maybe my pre-frontal cortex is all developed now, (or something) but the urge to fight and fix myself is slowly slipping away. I’ve been leaning into my own internal rhythm more. Discovering the detail of how I show up in the world. And it feels peaceful, in spite of how disorienting everything can be.

The only other times I’ve felt moments of peace like this are when I’m in nature, surrounded by trees. This is a poem about that. Let’s begin.

---

tree-silence

morning fills the room like still water. grey foam rising. 

a bleached sun pooling at the window. since i have tried

everything else already, today i hold my arms out to it all. 

you are mine, i say: to the labouring breath. the weak light. 

the tremor and life-husk. you are mine, mine. and like that

it arrives. an unnamed thing. a silence i think.

---

if you flung your arms around a tree and pressed your ear

against the bark you would hear this too. this wide silence. 

it comes to me today, past the concrete and telephone lines

and street lamps, through the pale dusty square of window,

seeping into the spaces emptied of morning, when i poured

it all out like dishwater and dull spume. 

---

tree-silence. it smells of summer grass. of after-rain. i wait 

till the deep roots take hold inside me. till the memories of

soil become mine. green hush. mossy boughs stretching out, 

out, as if edges were make-believe, as if the only true thing 

in the world was the hum of new leaves, the way leaflings

lift towards the yellow-blue, this wide silence

---

casting a shade i did not know i could lie beneath, 

drinking a light i did not know i had.

---

I think the reason why it feels so peaceful to be in nature is the feeling of being just another organic life-form, no different from the trees or the soil. Existing as we are, without expectation or comparison.

To me this poem is about letting go. Unfixing myself. Not shrinking away from the world, but letting it move through me. And the wide, vast contentment that can come with that.

I’ve always wanted to be a tree, or be like one. And this recent fragment of peace makes me feel more like one. (Or, what I imagine it would feel like to be a tree, in my own human way of anthropomorphising nature.) Rooted. Growing in silence. And I’m grateful.

Before You Go…

If you liked my poem then do consider subscribing or spreading the word! I write weekly poetry about the everyday, from my heart to yours. What makes you feel peaceful? Talk to me in the comments.

And finally, here’s what I’ve been loving on Substack this week:

1. Special mention to two tree-related pieces: ‘Trees for Thought’ by

   Don Boivin
   and ‘A Study in Bark’ by
   Saffron Morter-Laing
   !

2. ‘Tell Them Where You’re From’ by

   Marc Typo
   which reminded me of George Ella Lyon’s ‘Where I’m From’ in the best way possible.

3. And

   Andrea Gibson
   ’s ‘How Did I Change So Much, So Quickly?’ which is one of the best things I've read about growth lately; tender, urgent and heart-wrenching.

Thank you all for reading. I’ll be back with a new poem next week.

Love,

Anagha