Long Arboretum Poems

gardens are where we are:

  from "Eden" to "Gilgamesh", "Babylon" to "Gethsemane"
  from mountain to coast, town to country
  from wetlands to desert oasis, under the sea to the edge of ice
...

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Like an arboretum, my smile and laughter fills empty space,
tall stand the trees all huddled together like girlfriends on a chilly night ready to share their secrets.
We lay bare our souls, sat on the bench,...

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BEYOND DESCRIPTION

If you took all the words in all the dictionaries.
The words of all the books in all the world’s libraries,
You’d still not have enough to tell of all God’s love
Or describe the glorious mansions...

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Memorial service ~10:00 A.M. October 21st, 2020...
at Cherry Hill, New Jersey Unitarian Fellowship

Boyce Brandon Harris cremains
(approximately one fourth entire contents)
offered, interred, and eulogized
within ‘Tristan’s Pollinator Garden,'
which constitutes minute arboretum
bore witness to immediate family of said...

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The other day I heard two lovers having a quarrel. They were sitting on a park bench at the arboretum near my home. I though to myself, "I wonder what the big fuss is all...

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Land of Graves

A land of graves makes for quiet neighbors.  
He who blessed or cursed extant thereupon remains 
Shall suffer little disturbance at the will of his resting countrymen.  
The deep silence of...

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("Zero Point of Creation", 2018, original encaustic)

In Praise of Mindlessness

I’ve sought and found mindlessness in a variety of ways
From dancing to climbing, meditating and painting,
but in retirement I find it easiest mowing the arboretum.

As I...

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Airy Wells and Emmett Street were working class kids,
Just shy of a high school diploma.
Airy’s mom had a habit of drinking too much.
Emmett’s father was fighting lymphoma.

Airy and Emmett had jobs after school,
And mostly just...

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I bowed before the Lord.
Like a little brook, His Spirit flowed.
As I went lower, the Bestower
Poured more into my soul.
A whole refreshing, a mighty blessing
Like a fragrant arboretum flowed.
As praise I raised, heaven heaved
And more...

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Within a lush verdant meadow, meanders a lazy river
Where wildflowers bloom beneath the warm breath of the sun
They sway upon a gypsy wind on this early morning in June

Stems of purple heather rise above the...

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Three women friends, riding in a golf cart, an arboretum journey.
The sky was overcast, the mood jubilant, we were ready for fun.
A reverence and sacred silence met us as we entered the park.
There were ten...

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Did you see the rose bushes in the arboretum this afternoon? Did you see all the powerful colors lighting up the garden? How about the butterflies dancing upon the petals of the roses? They dipped...

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When the last wild tree has fallen,
Concrete covered last bare earth,
When we've finally completed
Rape of the Mother Earth,
When the last bird has flown freely,
The last wild animal safely caged,
Will we be proud of the warfare
Against...

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The arboretum is quiet today.
It is early,
yet too late
to spot a somnambulant space alien
emerging from the thorny bushes.

Do you believe?
I have seen the odd-looking sparrows,
with their razor-sharp teeth,
have fearfully
fed them the toenails of the toothless.

I...

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A COPPER PENNY


The significance of a copper penny…
It’s part of our heritage
Being raised in the copper mining area
Of Ruth, Nevada
Fathers and brothers worked for
The Kennecott Copper Mining Corporation
Both abhorred and sacrificed for
It was a job
The...

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City of Trees 

1
Johannesburg, home to ten million trees,
It’s the world’s largest urban arboretum.
Streets in summer lie beneath green canopies.

2
From sidewalks their branches meet with ease
And soon, very soon, each street’s a shady sanctum.
Johannesburg, home...

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Go to the wall and read the names
Go to the wall and stand
Go to the wall and shed a tear
For those that saved our land.

Stand by the wall and read the dates
Stand by the wall...

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Thomas Higgins was busy doctor
And spent his evenings with the rector
Who managed a nearby seminary;
He was a man loveably down-to-earth and ordinary.

He spent the hours between four and six
In the nearby arboretum studying twings
And the...

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A New Sun
Shining through leaves...
a golden canopy of Light...

and the calling-after voice
of an insistent mother, rises, instructs,
and dies away

and all of it:  the breeze, the whispers, the passing occasional car, the children's laughter

floods into...

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Wings in puddles.
There must have been a leak,
and in the sky nothing fly’s 
but a crippled gale,
it limps now, yet howls still
from the far side of lost town.

Wind-drones moan in bare trees
sky wreckage litters.
Dead Purple...

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The railroad trestle stood out
Like a burnt tree
In the center of an arboretum
Just down the road
Past the old Wenapecka tunnel

Late at night
At almost any given time
The sound of heavy wheels
On trains that appeared 
To have...

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The arboretum looks as it did then
With silver maples dancing in the breeze
Wildflowers bloom within the narrow glen
Remember how we kissed beneath the trees?

One special oak displays the heart you carved
With our initials set within...

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At the Arboretum

Two walked the gardens on that day;
(Only one seen on the rock pathway)
One struck with pansies, lilies, greens!
The Other in peace enjoys the scene.

A rustling breeze was softly blowing 
Waterfalls trickled as gentle...

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I think they tease their hair
just to look a bit wilder
a little more… “coyote ugly”.
Perhaps a dash of “sports make-up”
under the eyes
to cut down the glare
of the headlights.
They roam the streets
hang out behind dumpsters
(probably smoking,...

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