It’s occurring to me why Suzanne Simard’s Finding the Mother Tree has struck such a chord in my heart. Yesterday I remembered this poem written over a decade ago (first poem in the Prophecy: conversations with my Self pamphlet, from 2010, available as free download from my webshop, link in bio).
What Simard is writing about, I knew all those years ago. Well, I didn’t have the understanding that Simard writes of because I’m not a scientist, I’m a poet, but Andy and I had begun mountain biking a lot back then and many of the mtb trails snaked through commercial or working forests.
Every time we visited these types of forests I couldn’t escape the feeling that the trees were somehow lost, that they didn’t know the truth of themselves, and that this was caused by their being planted in this way. Like children left alone with no one to teach them anything about being human.
I knew this because there was a stark contrast to the ways in which more natural trees, woodlands and forests would feel and communicate. I didn’t really know how to put this into words, so I wrote poems, because this is how I see the world.
Text reads:
for the trees
there was a place she visited once with forests that s t r e t c h e d planted
regimented
ruled
and when she spoke
the trees did not know her
and when she spoke with the voice of the mountain the trees did not know themselves
and she raged
and mountains wept for the soulless trees
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