.png)
Sometimes inspiration arrives quietly—on a September morning walk, when the air is cool, the light soft, and every detail feels alive. I carried a small notebook that day, jotting down sounds, colors, and textures as they came. Later, those notes grew into this poem, The Tree and the Turning Earth. At its heart is a gnarled, dead tree that I’ve passed many times, one that has become a marker between the chaos of the interstate and the stillness of the forest.
The Tree and The Turning Earth
To my right, the interstate hides just over the hill,
beyond the railroad tracks.
Hums and rushes drift through the quiet,
while the railroad rises, a great divider
between my stillness and that distant rush.
On this side, where calm reigns, insects hum,
welcoming the day like an old friend.
My feet scrape loose pebbles on the worn pavement.
To my left, the forest stands, bathed in early light.
It’s late September,
The trees still dressed in greens of every shade.
But here and there, oranges, reds, and golds
begin to show their faces,
bright flickers for those who care to see.
Nature’s colors, sounds, everywhere, all at once.
The sun peeks through branches
as the earth slowly turns to meet it.
I look ahead:
Stark branches of a dead tree catch my eye.
It’s been standing, lifeless, for years.
Like me, caught between the chaos I left behind
and the quiet I’m nearing but never quite reaching.
Its roots tangled in both worlds...
The interstate’s hum and the forest’s sigh.
I wonder when it will finally fall,
and if anyone will be around to hear it.
The drawing above began as a direct response to the poem. What fascinated me was how the dead tree could still feel so alive in presence—its twisted form a witness to both motion and stillness, caught between two worlds. I’ve included a photo of my original notes from that walk. They’re raw, unfiltered scribbles, but they capture the exact moment when observation turned into art.
This poem reminds me that art isn’t always about grand gestures. Sometimes it’s about noticing what’s been standing in front of us for years, and giving it space to speak. The tree will one day fall, but until then, it remains a marker of time, change, and the turning earth.
