Ode to Trillium

 

 

 

I wanted to see how often I've honored Trillium in my writings.

Turns out I've written 11 poems to Her.  I've picked out 5 for this ode today.

 

Wake Robin

Blood-red trillium,
      with your sumptuous variegated leaf patterns,
      arising in big colonies early, so early in spring,
      amid dry leaves and old twigs,
Triple Goddess, you sprout from the dry earth
      innocently, as if it were every day
      ancient knowledge comes forth into our sight.
You lie barely visible at our feet,
      one of the old ones, short and well-adapted
      to the forest floor, a gnome
      with a new red cap.
But no pretty pink here, nor lacy white.
      You are of the blood of the Earth Mother herself,
      and even Her rich warm blood has beauty,
      and she will not hide this, our Mother.
      She bleeds, and Her blood is beautiful.
Wake Robin, wake us to know
      where e’er we walk, She feels and knows.
      We kiss the Earth, but She bruises, too,
      in bloodroot, in trillium, in fracking, in clearcut, in war.
Wake, Robin, don’t be a fool!
      Here is Life’s own rich display, ineffable,
      the upward thrust, the very orgasm of Spring.
She is here today, for you, for us,
      crowding upward for us here,
      but once only.

Annelinde Metzner
Flat Creek, North Carolina, March 23, 2012

As Spring unfolds                                      

As Spring unfolds, thousands
     of newest buds light up like flames
     upon each dogwood branch, each twig.
Thousands!  All lit from within,
     chlorophyll newly opened like a babe’s emerging crown,
     lighting up green on the tips of each twig.
In the woods, the newest Solomon’s Seal
     curls open, leaf by leaf,
     near the unfurling spiral of the fiddle-head fern.
As if to say, “I’m flowing once more,”
     the bloodroot, each leaf a different shape,
     sprouts white despite its sanguine roots.
The Trillium is back!  aware, proud of Herself
     and sure in Her threeness.
Birds in pairs sing all the day,
     impressing one another,
     bedding done in their newly assembled nests.
The Mayapple spreads wide its umbrella,
     dozens and dozens on the forest floor,
     waiting for us, waiting
     for our joy to join their ecstasy.

Annelinde Metzner
Black Mountain
April 17, 2014

 

     
 Reclamation                                                      

A pile of rubble, rusty springs, beer cans, car hoods,
strewn in the back of the old country place.
You could relax on an old car seat!
And now, walk amid crystal fountains,
hostas, trillium and Buddhas.
Sunlight dapples a leaf here and there.
The sound is tranquil among the trees,
the waterfall and the neighbor’s chickens.
Reclamation.
And what do you hide?
What is there, thrown to the back yard, out of sight,
that has rusted and accumulated each year?
What have you given up,
where have you lost hope and left,
despair winning out over possibility?
Nature is our teacher, and She is the master,
the source of true resurrection.
How easy, how effortless
to love this Earth,
the woodpecker, the spring peeper,
and give Her a hand to return again.

Annelinde Metzner
Mountain Light Zen Garden
May 31, 2014   

 Pearson Falls                                       

How did it feel, the discovery,
   before the stone steps carefully laid,
   before the thoughtfully placed and sturdy railings?
How was it that first day, the first human here,
   inching slowly through the thick undergrowth,
   following the sound (everywhere!) of falling waters,
   at long last to arrive and gaze upward,
   one's breath taken away by the height
   of the sheer rock face laced over with
   a wondrous curtain of water?
Time enough to ponder,
   to absorb, to just be,
   like the moth perched here on my writing-page,
   like the toad among the ephemeral woodland plants.
"Let it go!" She teaches me,
   as I sit and gaze.
"You will never know the whole story,
   what brought us to wherever we are now.
Let the relentless power,
   more precise, more intelligent, more patient than you,
   bring justice wherever it's needed."
I put my hands together, giving thanks,
   and sit with the trillium, the bloodroot,
   the wood thrush close by,
   breathing the water's unceasing wisdom.

Annelinde Metzner; Pearson Falls, April 29, 2021

What if you had to leave?                                            

This high bank of trillium, purple, pink,
the three wide leaves
a generous hand beckoning;
the unraveling Solomon's Seal,
suspending its tiny, potent buds;
the still air and
the crow’s loud assessment;
a turn down the trail-
and if this leaving were forever?
What if you had to leave?
Madly do you love Her, your Mother of the mountain woods?
Do you yearn to roll up inside of Her,
a wooly-worm in winter?
You will.
One day you will.

Annelinde Metzner, Ox Creek Road, May 15, 1998