Trees Walking into Poems

by Jeanne Lohmann

1. Poplars at Fort Worden set me moaning and tossing, branch on swaying branch they pull me down. Last night wild and bending, was it for joy in wind from the sea they were bowing? To what and to whom? This morning the poplars stay quiet, though my body wakes restless, uneasy and bound to the trees, their creaking and groaning all night, the dark storm raging in from the sea. 2. I write about trees as if by touching pine-bark, tapping a maple for sap, breaking off scarlet leaves, needles and cones, I could come close. This is not a way in. So I will go to the cedar and lean against and into the rough solidity of tree, trunk that doesn't accept my presence or regret absence, doesn't much care. Another way in is looking up through the crown into the sky. Or to go, as I do day after day, to one particular eucalyptus and check on a family of raccoons who've taken that tree for home. If I say I want to be like a redwood, what have I in mind? Hundreds of years with my feet in duff, a shallow root-system? "Harvest" that cuts me loose from the forest, turns me into something else?