Choir
First appeared in Survival: Trees, Tides, Song – 2019, Finishing Line Press
I sing in a Forrest Choir.
It’s me and the trees. Tall slim trunks standing in line.
Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass. Birch, Maple, Apple, Pine.
With wind as our Leader; harmonies soar.
When I was young, I knew the trees as friends.
My gaze through green boughs to blue sky brought knowledge of certain connection.
Nature and I were one and the same, and that same was Perfection.
But, leaving childhood brings doubts and clouds. Certainty ends.
Happy with outsiders, I was drawn to a gifted, afflicted artist who,
in the language of trees, was first “marcescent” (withering, yet holding on), then “deciduous” (shedding all). Witnessing this unravel seemed when life was hardest. Finding the way of my own survival, new challenges grew.
Now, wind is Choir Leader; clouds, audience. In concert, harmonies soar.
Tall trunks, textured with bark; vertical, gate-like, bridge to the sky.
Tonal humming. Vibration. A song key tunes our hearts. Time to fly!
Now, I sing in a Forrest Choir.
-Marjorie Moorhead
Marjorie Moorhead writes from the NH/VT border; a river she crosses frequently. Her work is found in several collections, many poetry sites, and debut chapbook, Survival: Trees, Tides, Song (Finishing Line Press 2019). Forthcoming, Marjorie’s “(Villanelle) For My Planet” will be in Planet In Peril (Fly On The Wall 2019)