Poetry, Pandemic and Redwood Forest Musings

Poetry

Jul 05, 2021

Redwood forest off Highway 20 West in Northern California—Photo by © Mary Rose Kaczorowski

We pandemic-weary souls are moving out of our sheltering in place patterns and looking for a post-pandemic return to normalcy. We still try to assess or ignore the risks. Everyone is dealing in some way with a new awkwardness, emotional frustrations, anxieties, and losses be it of loved ones, or economic security.

The power of the arts and seeking to immerse my elf in nature has always been a healing balm for me. I have been writing poetry since I was seven years old.

Writing poetry, painting or photographing and listening to music or enjoying other art forms has been my anchor as I ride the waves of this lifetime. I have always been able to make sure that my close connection with nature is never broken. The artistry of nature, the endless shades of color, shapes, patterns, textures are just endless. Walking and engaging with nature is free and requires nothing but your presence.

Living here on the Mendocino North Coast, on lands taken from the indigenous original native peoples, I am acutely aware that constructs of land ownership are an invention. No one can really fence in mother nature. The redwood forests here, the coastal strand, the oak woodlands, the pygmy forest and ecological staircase terraces each have their own strata zones within each unique ecosystem. Thousands of years of geological time is in their story!

People around the world for centuries lived with the understanding that we humans are only a part of the complex web of this planet’s ecological relationships. Alexander Von Humboldt was world famous back in his day for explaining the fundamental functions of earth’s ecosystems, the interconnectedness of life and our human species role in tinkering with and destroying it.

Without nature, what would we be? I always like to point out that no one owns the earth. Those all are topics to investigate on another day.

Earlier this year, I had a hard time finding my muse- to write new poetry. Our local library a few years back started an ongoing open mic session for local poets. We met religiously every month in person until COVID-19 hit. Like most of the world we turned to ZOOM. Our small town as it is lacking the space for a poet’s venue and keeping poetry alive here is a must for some of us.

After several weeks of writer’s block, I was reading older poems, poems by other poets or poems I was still working on during our Zoomed open mic sessions. Sitting in our little boxes on our screen peering out and hoping our rural internet connections could keep up with us as we grappled with adapting to a new way of being poets!

All the while I was thinking of our local Redwood Forests that are still being ravaged by commercial logging. I took more walks or drove along some of our logged-over second growth forests. Many of these forests were logged and clear-cut just over 90 years ago and are just beginning to recover. Some have become what we call industry tree plantations. Yes, these rugged Coastal Range Mountains and national and state forests and privately owned timber holdings are still being logged. Remember that redwoods can live to be a thousand to three thousand years old!

The muse came back!... and so, I wrote a poem that I entitled, There Were the Trees.

I recorded my poem, and it can be heard on the archived Rhythm Running River radio show that was broadcast on our KZYX-Z FM public radio station- on July 4, 2021.

I want everyone to hear it and when you do I hope you understand why.

The radio show is the third of four in a series that features poetry submitted to the 46th annual Mendocino Spring Poetry Celebration.

The all-day poetry celebration and readings had to be cancelled again this year due to the pandemic restrictions. The music on the show is upbeat and complimentary to the poetry and is almost all new world releases, from Ivory Coast, Poland, Italy, and much more. Kudos go out to fellow poets Dan Roberts (the program host), and to poet Gordon Black for sifting through the poems of “60 brave poets who recorded and submitted their work”.

There Were the Trees can be found in the second hour - starting on counter: 25:14/55:0

Listen to it once or twice and then maybe go out and then listen to the trees or even just one tree?

Chronicles from the Redwood Coast & beyond

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