The Green Man Is Coming

Woodcut and Photograph by Tyler DeLong

Those of you who follow me on social media will know that I recently unveiled the above image as a companion to my forthcoming book of poetry, The Green Man. The woodcut was done by the artist and woodworker Tyler DeLong. It is based in part on a reproduction of a Green Man carving in Winchester Cathedral and an image of door-warden on DeLong’s family home. The image is so stunning, I nearly fear that my words cannot stand up to it. The image came just hours before I submitted my final manuscript to the publishers. If all goes well, we may see copies available in the late Spring.

Spring seems an apt time to be thinking more closely about the Green Man again. It has not arrived here in the Inland Northwest, but we can sense its coming. The snow is beginning to melt, even as it comes down, and the sun shines just a little longer and little brighter each day. Of course, liturgically, we are in the midst of Lent. The season’s English name comes from an Anglo-Saxon word which means to lengthen, reminding us yet again that the agricultural calendar has always been part of the liturgical one, and this is as it should be. But as the land begins to soften, we must, also soften our hearts. We must prepare the soil that is our soul for the coming of Christ’s resurrection. For now, we wait, we fast, we pray, we give alms, all waiting for the one whose symbol might well be the Green Man himself. After all, the Green Man can be said to die each Winter and gradually come back to life each Spring. He symbolizes for us the cycle of death and life found in nature, which itself is a symbol of the Author Life being born to die and dying to be resurrected. The seasons themselves are a reminder that death does not have the final say, life will always follow after.

And so, what with this wonderful new image, a new piece over at Dappled Things, and the submission of my poetry manuscript, I leave with the poem that started off this entire project. I leave you with the Green Man.

Effoliating foliage, he haunts
His local habitation. The tutelary
Spirit, ripener of wildest blackberry,
Protector of the bees’ humblest wants.
From cloves to honeysuckles, from elm to maple,
He cares for the wood as if it were his garden.
The iridescent lights of night are starred in
His eyes. He gathers food for his greenwood table.
And once, in ages now so long forgotten,
His greening power helped even us to grow.
He was our teacher and our dearest friend.
But now on the New Wine we are besotted,
Drunk on this technological flow.
Still, even in the gales he will not bend.

(first published at the Imaginative Conservative)

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