AUTHOR’S NOTE:

THIS POEM is really two poems by two authors.

The first part was sent to me by an aspiring new poet named Däanlea, whose work really deserves to be published in print one day.

The second part is my response.

This piece begins in a personal vein, and ends with an extension of the personal into the infinite.

We conscious and unconscious beings are all on a journey together. I hope this poem helps the reader capture some sense of that.

THE PINE

I

Cold winds howl down the steep slopes
Where a solitary pine stands tall
The clouds usher in the snowflakes to provide
a protecting layer against the dark, long nights.
Are you the pine or the snow?
When the sun emerges from behind the mountain
will the down covering melt?
The sun provides its warmth and allows
the tree to grow stronger and taller
with each passing day.
Shall we hike today to the hillside
of this tree and make our acquaintance?

II

I am the pine
I am the dissolved and renewed essence of the pines that were
I am the millionfold seeds of the pines to come
And what pines will become

Like you, I am awakened earth
Like you, I am cooled and crystallized starstreams
Unlike you, I think not in moments but in millennia

Whether you know it or not
You are related to me
Together we will act to birth new ages, new universes
Together we acted to birth this age
We were together at the beginning which was more than a beginning
We will be together at the end which is not an end

This earth with its snows and rivers and oceans
Is our gift to each other.
Come beneath me
And be healed.