Tree Guardian

Pencil on paper, 11x14in

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No Ordinary Sun, by Hone Tuwhare

Tree let your arms fall:
raise them not sharply in supplication
to the bright enhaloed cloud.
Let your arms lack toughness and
resilience for this is no mere axe
to blunt nor fire to smother.

Your sap shall not rise again
to the moon’s pull.
No more incline a deferential head
to the wind’s talk, or stir
to the tickle of coursing rain.

Your former shagginess shall not be
wreathed with the delightful flight
of birds nor shield
nor cool the ardour of unheeding
lovers from the monstrous sun.

Tree let your naked arms fall
nor extend vain entreaties to the radiant ball.
This is no gallant monsoon’s flash,
no dashing trade wind’s blast.
The fading green of your magic
emanations shall not make pure again
these polluted skies . . . for this
is no ordinary sun.

O tree
in the shadowless mountains
the white plains and
the drab sea floor
your end at last is written.

Spirit Guide

Watercolor, pen, on paper.

 It started off as it always did in the stories. Small, unnoticed. A bit of dust, a leaf, some birds not finding their way south for the winter.

Perhaps it could've been avoided, asked, and begged with cries from billions of throats but She did not listen.

No one really noticed until a storm wandered west instead of east, nor until the land began to shake and lift, pluck apart at the roots. The seas tumbled into the sky, becoming naught but full of falling fish.

The trees were leaving. And they seemed quite content in not wishing to come back.

Beginning

"I need the dreams again. No, I need the visions. There, just beyond the turn of a shadow. There, waiting impatiently for eyes to figure out just what it was that was so black. Or so red. Old, old blood, making you wonder. Where did it come from? Why did I not see it earlier, when last I walked through? Dawning, ever so slowly. You had forgotten who's it had been. You had forgotten why you had splattered it in the first place."