Publishing My First Book of Poetry and a Reflection on Trees
Picture by David Russell Mosley
Dear Friends,
I am very sorry for how late this letter is. It has been a crazy couple of weeks at work and in the world. We had MLK Day, my birthday, the inauguration and more.
One piece of news, which I have announced to you before, is that I am officially publishing my first book of poetry, The Green Man, with the Resource Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. I am over the moon about this. I would not have ever believed that I'd be publishing a book of poetry. Now here I am, just a few weeks away from submitting my manuscript. As soon as I have a publication date, I'll let you know.
Speaking of my book of poetry, I want to make a plea to those of you who like my work, especially my poetry. Because I am publishing with the Resource Imprint, I have to bear a small part of the financial burden for publishing the book. This, sadly, isn't unusual, but is much cheaper than printing the book myself. Also, I'm hoping to include a woodcut by the wonderful woodworker, Tyler DeLong. In order to do these things, I'm asking you to consider helping out by "buying me a beer." Even just $5 would help immensely.
Now that the, to me, distasteful part of this is done, I want to turn our attention to the trees themselves. Recently, I was reminded of a Welsh phrase by the poet and author Robert MacFarlane. The phrase is Dwi wedi dod yn ôl at fy nghoed. Roughly, it means something like "I have returned to my senses," or "I have returned to a calm state of mind. Translated literally, however, the sentence means, I have come back to my trees. Many languages have idioms such as this. An Italian friend of mine once told me that her city's way of saying "I'm exhausted" could be literally translated as "I have no bananas." But there's something about this idiom of returning to my trees that speaks to me.
As many of you know, I moved last summer from New England to the Inland Northwest. This change has meant a change from predominantly deciduous trees to predominantly coniferous ones. The conifers are beautiful trees. Their crackled bark, the immense heights some of them reach, and how beautifully they are adorned by the thick snow that falls here are all a delight. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss my maples, beeches, yellow birches, and white ashes. Even the trees of Illinois, my home state, the black oak and black elm and others dominate my imagination when I think of trees and forests. I wonder which are my trees, which ones do I need to return to?
Of course, perhaps the normal reading of this idiom is simply that the Welsh saw returning home as a returning to a calm state of mind, that wandering whether of feet or feelings was cured by returning. But then I think of Barfield, and I wonder. What might the combined meanings of this idiom mean? Why trees and not just home? What is there that links the trees and my senses? The twisted roots of trees, connected by rhizomal, fungal networks might well be a good analogy for the the firing of our synapses.
The rootedness of trees, whose branches and roots wander, but whose trunks move primarily upward, keeping them in the same geographical location, may speak of the need for our flights of fancy, for mystical experiences with the world around us, without losing sight of the world either. Perhaps the return isn't a simple one. Perhaps there is no real going back.
We are always transformed by our wanderings and we see the world around us in a new light, sometimes we even transform it ourselves. Think of a tree planted near a sidewalk; its roots grow underneath and over time raise the sidewalk up, breaking the concrete, altering its environment. And it changes too, the roots get longer, the branches reach out and grow thicker the closer they are to the trunk. We are much the same. We grow and change, even as we stay rooted in our being. But if we reach out into the wrong place, or rooted in bad soil, we'll grow more stuntedly and ultimately, we'll die. But planted well, growing well, tended well, we'll flourish as we change and grow and add to the world.
Right now, it sometimes feels as though my wits are still wandering, and I have not returned to my trees. But maybe, if I can cultivate my madness, I can become more akin to the Holy Fool, who sees through the habit and custom that clouds our eyes. Then, when I do return to my trees, maybe I can retain some of that other sight, going not backward, but forward like a spiral, passing over the same points of my life but in new ways, with new ways of seeing. At least, I pray that I can.
Sincerely,
David Russell Mosley
