Written Letter - December 16, 2009

We have lost our friend Christine. She has left us with the task of sorting through the images, words and memories she left behind. Even among these her tokens, we miss her presence. 

Christine was an artist. The 18th century poet and lexicographer Samuel Johnson remarked on the artist’s dual role: to instruct and to delight. Christine’s special art was to educate us with beautiful images. We who are left must decide how to present Christine’s art—to continue and re-present it to those who may not have known her. 

I’ll read a poem of mine that I know Christine liked. It isn’t a difficult or obscure poem; it isn’t to be studied; but it does want to reach out and touch the great mystery into which our friend Christine has gone. 

POEM OF PRESERVATION AND PRAISE 
FOR THE HEMLOCK/CANADICE WATERSHED 

Here is the land 
where trees have a vote. 
Watch how they are cast. 

White Pine votes for clean air. 
Black Willow votes for water. 
Young Poplars loitering in a crowd 
vote for a flowing spring. 
Tribes of Chestnut and Elm 
are sadly diminished; 
their once great pluralities 
absent, silent. 
Shagbark hickory votes 
in a hail of nuts. 
Sugar Maple and Black Cherry 
cast a sweet ballot. 
At the marsh edge 
Beech, Birch, Maple and Ash 
gather to discuss issues. 
Scotch Pine plantations vote 
in a block like a union. 
Here and there 
lonely idealistic Hemlocks 
hang against a shady bank 
still voting against gravity. 

Again this spring 
with flower, leaf, 
root, branch and bole 
trees vote unanimously 
to bask in sunshine, to 
hold soil and drink water, 
and to return us breath.