Those Trees
Martha Williams
Anna Smedeby, Le sentier du Vallon des Chênes, 76x57cm
I sat
on trunks
that were
driven like
glacial rock
deep down
deep raucous
They were
staked
for my sake
those trees
I was 9 or 10 there, in Tennessee. Sideways light. Rock and lakes. Cattails and trampolines.
And trees.
Those trees
Trees that talk in
low hums and air whistles.
Words not delineated
by syllables and verbs.
Words that hug me
with their knowing
the same words my dog
speaks.
Wordless knowing
sensing seeing
unmotivated words
not trying to be
but words that are present
have presence
and speak to my
whole body
Those trees
roots driven down into the
earth
Anna Smedeby, The light at the edge of the forest, 70x50cm
like a night train
to China and back
curling around
every bend with
a giggle
And sometimes roots bearing down
so hard that
they explode the earth.
So to be here
pushed
pushing
those roots
rooted for me
touching the
mama core fire
they were
as strong as black coffee
at 5AM
ready to work
and
big
as
fuck
I felt those roots
then
I felt them wrapped around me
As my father toiled
in idyllic spiritual delight. Cartwheels to class. Fountain pen marking the page with his discovery.
Harmony, heavy, hard.
As my mother bounced
in time to Lionel Richie and Xanadu while teaching aerobics. Buried in her own domestic boredom. Snacking on the adventure of the Tennessee hills. This place seemed foreign to her. Heady. Not enough laughter. Not enough fun. The sun not quite bright enough.
She never landed.
But I did.
Those trees behind the house.
They held me
the way my parents couldn’t
at the time.
They saw me
for me.
My roots driven deep
with
trunk chopped and carved
thrown like a matchstick
on trucks and planes
taken
torn
and deposited somewhere else again.
I wonder about those trees
so many years ago
with those roots
I couldn’t grow
Roots I couldn’t hate or love or know
roots that nourished
and bound
Instead I was a
treble trumpet
repeating
the same tune
of adventure and
forward movement
So forward that I fried
I fried from sun rays and
new ways of saying soda, pop, and coke
Friends come close
Friends then go
While parents talk with words
I can’t hear
and
then
throw me on the back of a truck
like a matchstick again