The central theme of my poems is the paternal nature of trees. I wrote these to explore my lifelong relationship with trees as surrogate father - from childhood wonder in the Pacific Northwest forests, through the disillusionment of seeking a human father who struggles with addiction, to a final acceptance and return to the natural world that never abandoned me. The formal structure of the poems mirrors this arc, beginning with a child’s imaginative thinking, unraveling through adulthood stress, and quietly reassembling as I find my way home.
How to climb a tree
The meaning to life is found in the climb of a tree.
To climb a tree is to rest in my true father’s hands.
Pink-nosed, I watch my breath braid with the wind.
From his branches I am lifted, head above the clouds.
Babel fell - yet still there waits a ladder.
My fingers burrow deep in his bark.
To climb a tree is to rest in my true father’s hands.
The horizon leans closer, no longer farther.
Leaves murmur low against my burning ears.
From his branches I am lifted, head above the clouds.
It is a father’s duty, whether tree or human, to gift his son wonder.
He says- “All that you see is yours.”
To climb a tree is to rest in my true father’s hands.
I do not know my human father.
The tree is my fathers father, a generation skipping transfer
From his branches I am lifted, head above the clouds.
At seven, I believe in ladders.
My sugared palms grip harder, and climb again.
To climb a tree is to rest in my true father’s hands.
From his branches I am lifted, head above the clouds.
It is a boon to know how to climb a tree.
Forgetting how to climb a tree
Father is a far and foreign thought
It’s roots grow from my wounds
And I am stirred away from my forest home.
Trees stand unclimbed and unloved.
I rule no-body, not even my own.
I am too weak to be a martyr and too lost to be found
I am both a victim and perpetrator.
I became a lumber jack, in search of my human father.
Stories of his metal teeth drove me to search.
And I found him, Among the trees with other men smelling like Jägermeister
Gasoline hands and sulphur breath
Tobacco smoke and splintered hands.
He did not recognize me
And I did not recognize the trees
Not as friends.
Not as a father.
I cut trees and counted logs
Winning competitions among human men.
My father refused to see me.
I refused to see the crying trees.
Five years of my life
Were sacrificed to murder.
At eighteen
I cut down the largest tree ever grown.
And finally I was seen as I am.
A monkey among men.
And I now know that men,
Unlike trees, eat monkeys.
I ran.
Dropping my chainsaw to the forest floor.
At twenty three I relearn
How to climb a tree.
Remembering how to climb a tree
To climb a tree is to escape
From the flood of men.
Men who have forgotten they are half-ape,
Rather than helping hands from within.
Which are reaching upward into the gardens of angels.
Angels are known for their forgiveness which tastes like skittles.
But in the oak arms of my true father I am forgiven
Before apology, I am liberated of all affliction.
The father of man stands at the base of the trees unable to climb
Trees look up away from his anger, breathing just fine.
Anger had blinded my thoughts and deafened my body
To the wisdom of my earthly father, blind to the godly.
With a father all is possible.
At twenty four I am certain,
I have remembered how to climb a tree.