The Sentry

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e, and the beaver too, and the old crow, with the tattered wing, who likes to land on my branches and sing to me his throaty song of the ages.</p><p id="a57e">The pages of history can speak to you in whispered tones of birds we’ve lost, or never known,</p><p id="11cd">or of rolling waves of pines, their stands unbroken for millennia, until mankind appeared.</p><p id="49db">But, <i>she’s</i> still here, beneath the tears we’ve shed for what’s already lost.</p><p id="83be">Her pulse races and quickens to the beat of eternity.</p><p id="a164">And, sometimes, all that you have to do to <i>see, </i>is to close your eyes and listen.</p><p id="ab15">This poem came to me in parts after I glimpsed the lone tree, covered with moss and lichen, shown in the top photo, while hiking in Silver Falls, Oregon. The way the light caught the edges of the branches seemed to echo the yellow glow of the distant woods. I was struck with the sense that this tree was the keeper between worlds, the one who could part the veils of time and allow a glimpse of eternity.</p><p id="4706">If you enjoyed this poem, you might also like:</p><div id="c867" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/a-trophic-cascade-in-my-own-backyard-a38f7bd16116"> <div> <div> <h2>A Trophic Cascade in my own Backyard</h2> <div><h3>This is what happens when we mess with Mother Nature</h3></div>

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    </div><p id="45d8">Photos and poem ©Erika Burkhalter. All rights reserved.</p></article></body>

A song of the ages

“The Sentry.” Photo ©Erika Burkhalter

Alone, I stand, the guardian to a forgotten world, a land of yesteryear, when others, like me, stood as sentries to the woods.

Here, if you stand just here, beside me, catching the glow, and you squint, just so, can you see it?

Beyond the crook in the river bend, beyond the flaming sumac, beyond the purpled pines, and fuzzy moss, and stands of poplar, if you close your eyes, and see with your mind, perhaps you will catch a glimpse of the divine.

For she resides within every feathered frond of fern, within every turn of the current, when it catches a rock and spins out into silvered vortexes, mirrors of our own universe, or multiverses, whirling into creation.

She shows herself, if you know how to look, in the crook of the old oak, who has seen more years and tears than we ever will.

She’s also in the breathy spray of the tumbling falls and the granite walls, which hug the cauldron of the dreaming pool, which waits below, watching for that ribbon of silver to unspool herself into its depths.

Her heart beats, hot, inside the breast of the mottled doe, and the beaver too, and the old crow, with the tattered wing, who likes to land on my branches and sing to me his throaty song of the ages.

The pages of history can speak to you in whispered tones of birds we’ve lost, or never known,

or of rolling waves of pines, their stands unbroken for millennia, until mankind appeared.

But, she’s still here, beneath the tears we’ve shed for what’s already lost.

Her pulse races and quickens to the beat of eternity.

And, sometimes, all that you have to do to see, is to close your eyes and listen.

This poem came to me in parts after I glimpsed the lone tree, covered with moss and lichen, shown in the top photo, while hiking in Silver Falls, Oregon. The way the light caught the edges of the branches seemed to echo the yellow glow of the distant woods. I was struck with the sense that this tree was the keeper between worlds, the one who could part the veils of time and allow a glimpse of eternity.

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