Showing posts with label rainforest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rainforest. Show all posts

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Chat with a tree today.

Western Red Cedar by Gillian Cornwall, c.2005
Oil Pastel on Paper $900.00
22" x 30"

If you have a chance, go to a forest today and breathe deeply. Feel the life, the peace, the perfect gift of nature. Restore your soul with the elements that really matter in this moment - life, love, and peace. I'm re-posting this from last year because it feels like a good time for it. I hope it brightens your day. 

A naive poem follows. It is meant to carry you to a peaceful place, a remembrance of how it works when we stop and listen to all of life and that we are one, inextricably connected.

The Western Red Cedar

I'm a western red cedar 
thuja plicata
green perfect plaits 
well-organized leaves

'tree of life' 
arbor-vitae
for the next thousand years 
I will reach for the sky


My limbs droop downward 
in peaceful repose
while birds fly and sing 
from my tip to my toes

I spread my feet wide
for fear I may fall
though I suppose the fact is
I'll outlive you all

I live in a forest 
you may never find 
It's a place tucked away
on the outside of time

Far down below me 
'mid the moss and the ferns
One day I shall lay there 
my death bed I'll earn

As trees came before me
may I feed many more
In the depths of the rich 
thick, lush forest floor

Do not forget me 
I bring you your air
for the breathe of the forest 
Is the life we all share

-Gillian Cornwall, c. May 4, 2014
Re-post, April 12, 2015

Cedar by the Lake
Gillian Cornwall, c. 2011

Sunday, June 01, 2014

The Rain Coast

 Rhododendron Spring - Victoria BC
Gillian Cornwall, c. 2007

Every lick of colour
sopping springtime blooms
wet paint in every green
fills the canvas of my town

Splotching pinkest pinks
Camellia upon Camellia
the fair flower that leaps whole
to the grassy bed below

Rhododendrons grow as trees here
floral monsters in pastel
a million pink and purple tongues 
catching raindrops from the sky

Now I lay me down among you
on this verdant, spongy ground
raincoat and gumboot clad
wash me clean into this land

-Gillian Cornwall, c. June 1, 2014


 Saanich - Vancouver Island, BC
Gillian Cornwall, c. May 2014.