When I Am Among the Trees

Inspiration from Mary Oliver

My sister Christine and I hugging a tree at Mt Barker. Notice her red shoes. She always had fashion flair! Photo by Maarten Schreuders.

Have you ever hugged a tree? How did it feel? What did it tell you?

“When I am among the trees,” is the opening line of a poem by Mary Oliver, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her intimate reflections on the natural world, based on her daily experience and immersion in it.

She was always, in body and spirit, among the trees, or by the side of a pond, walking a trail, or observing things that held her gaze, like owls, dragonflies, and grass. As she spent time alert and present in the great outdoors, potential lines of poetry coursed through her veins which now course through ours.

When I read her poem about the trees this morning, I recalled the moment when my sister Christine and I hugged a tree in Mt Barker (see photograph above).

Our arms just managed to reach around its great girth. It was a tingling moment. Heart-to-heart with an old tree. Heart-to-heart with each other.

In the tree poem, Oliver records that the willows, oaks, beech, and pines she walked amongst beckoned her to “stay awhile”. They called out to her to do what they do in the world:

“to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine.”

At Evergreen we have an abundance of trees. There is a thirty-year-old willow visible from every north-facing window, an ancient swamp banksia in the far-right corner of the property, large yates lean towards the house, an infant Japanese maple and young magnolia grow side-by-side in the garden, and an assortment of fruit trees flourish in season. On our daily walk we pass a collection of towering coastal karri trees that catch and hold the rays of the setting sun, making each view of them special and memorable.

Karri trees at sundown.

All these trees, whether in the garden or in the wild, are quiet except when the wind blows.

But their quietness carries messages – the sort that Mary Oliver picked up and passed on.

Stand still sometimes.

Sense yourself being filled with light.

Let that light shine. 

One of the first magnolia flowers to ever bloom at Evergreen.

Let’s be Mary Oliver this week.

Let’s walk among the trees.

Let’s listen to what they’ve been telling us all along.

To hear a reading of the poem click here.

With love, Marlane