SEQUOIADENDRON
GIGANTEUM II
With a tiny scissors
I take cuttings from the two-year old
Sequoiadendron Giganteum,
dipping them in rooting compound
before planting in prepared bed.
Wild ones between
earth and sky,
evolutionary
ancestors, if you live
another four thousand
years,
possibility you carry
in your genetic code,
we all might survive. Wild ones,
Bashō loved the Bashō tree
for its uselessness,
wind and rain against leaves
large enough to cover a harp,
big trunk untouched by the ax.
Earlier, Hui Tzu received this
from Chuang Tzu: You have a useless tree
and don’t know how to use it, plant it
in the middle of nowhere, something useless
will never be disturbed. Bonsaied
in my back yard. Seedling Sequoias
thickening their trunks in their
second year
revealing eternity. In
pre-history,
a forest of conifers. The Western
World
didn’t know about giant redwoods
until mid 19th Century.
Sequoia
for Sequoah, son of Cherokee Chief’s daughter.
Dendron, Greek for tree. Now thought to be
a genus of its own. Wild ones
young climbers call you today,
walking hands and knees through
creek bed
to find you. They find in your
canopies,
hidden bonsai growing as epiphytes
high in your crowns. Discovering
you
they become canopy trekkers,
traveling from tree to tree.
They bring hammocks with them
making animal love, sky walking
sky lovers. Entering the tree
my fingers larger than your limbs,
my in-breath is where
consciousness
is born. The ex-hale is commitment
and salutation. This year’s trunk
growth, green, measured in
inches,
will wooden before winter. Next
year
or the year after, I’ll begin the
search
for the pot to honor your journey.
Japanese bonsai artists secure
pines against earthquakes. Bashō
300 years ago saw pines
from the previous millennium.
Forests for futures none of us
will see.
What makes you useless makes you
valuable.
I hold a quart-sized spray bottle
misting ancient branches imitating
the ocean.
Jim Bodeen
August 2012-August 2014
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