The Mother Tree and Other Poems
by Chelsea Fraser
THE MOTHER TREE
She bears offspring and hopes
Provision, protection for her saplings:
Her roots, her company, her shade—
Young roots, entwine, mingle
With the aged depths, securing your foundation
In subterranean community.
Share the deep-breathed molecules,
Gravity-pulled into the nursery of your kin,
Sprawling earth-wide and homeward.
Young rings, bequeath your marks
In concentric ripples, time-won,
Patience married with the forest’s partnership.
Providing dapple-light for your exaggerated leaves,
Saturating carbon-food, exhaling oxygen,
Expanding with each breath invisibly.
Young reach, exult, and stretch
With the elder branches, ever upwards
In worship-postured gaze, repeating
Leaf-claps, wind held captive
Outside the canopy of the mother tree,
Providing for the green-wood practice.
Mother, stand, and wear the strength of prayer
On every whisper or shouting of the sky,
And having done all—
stand.
For under and among and deep
Beneath these laden boughs
Grow strength and home and being.
FOR BARTLEBY
“Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!”
-Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener
Maybe the ache behind my eyes
Is the incomplete wonderings I had
While I slept. A backlog of dreams
Or of strange juxtapositions awaiting
Due processing before a jury of their peers.
Or maybe this ache is pent up tears,
Pains long buried that germinate shoots,
Which surprise me, like weeds thought-pulled,
Despite the pattern of frequent resurgence—
Quite a laudable track record for unwanted things.
Perhaps my age pushes all of my boundaries:
Too big for my body, too many for my mind,
Too fast to steward as I would wish—
This ache feels like time, and I am old
And young, caught between is and oughts.
Maybe the ache behind my eyes
Is a gift to be held, a reminder of what is yet
Coming, a yearning to be directed Home.
The familiar juxtaposition of thoughts and pain
And age that makes one hope for more,
Long for a rescue, reach into the ache—
Maybe the aching groans with all creation,
Awaiting the certain weight of glory on the dawn.
MARCH
For all the saints
Who throughout time
Go marching one by one,
Having not seen the promise,
Who from their labor rest
Beyond time’s marching on—
Looking unto Jesus,
Who for the saints
Marched up a hill
With a promise on His back
To bring us into His rest
By His faithfulness.
Beyond our drooping hands
And weak knees
And weariness in well-doing,
Victory marching
Faithfully
Toward Home.
CHELSEA FRASER
Chelsea Fraser is a wife, mother, poet, musician, and arts administrator. She believes that the lived experience is art, that the world is art, and that we were made to participate in making beauty. Chelsea seeks to use the arts to build people up, and her work pays attention to the natural world which she believes God has made, seeking to connect it to human moments. Chelsea holds a BA in English Literature and an MA in Organizational Communication. She has been published in Ekstasis Magazine, Vessels of Light Journal, and The Way Back to Ourselves Literary Journal.