Just Hiding
Just Hiding
Sometimes, I could just hide
in some lined wood,
my fingertips fitting bark prints
as if I were
all fingertip,
a chosen trunk my belly’s back
as if I were only spine,
flattening myself against growth’s bounds
as if vertical were how I always laid me down,
as if hiding turned me into treasure one might seek,
asking, like the mourning dove, who I was–
though you already know that
through and through,
and, like the mourning dove,
ask only because the call sounds
of water,
like a swallow of water,
like the soft swoop/rise of water,
and trees need
water.
*****************************
Here’s a poem of sorts not written for any prompt! Though I will link, belatedly, to With Real toads Open Link Night. The picture is an old one, and doesn’t really go with the poem (as I meant to describe someone hiding behind a tree, not in one.) (I like the picture though!)
P.S. I’m so sorry I’ve been slow to return comments. I’ve been away from home close to two weeks and I’m a bit off-schedule. (And I think I may have posted this poem inadvertently when going to sleep!)
Explore posts in the same categories: poetry, UncategorizedTags: all's not so well with the world poem, hiding behind tree poem, manicddaily, Mourning dove poem, posting when fallin asleep
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ManicDDaily 
March 20, 2014 at 6:30 am
nice…i relate to the wood….to the trees….
nice touch to the mourning dove and asking who i am
i wrote on that question yesterday…and the extended analogies there in the end…to water, to the swallow…
hope you are getting some rest
March 20, 2014 at 9:07 am
Thanks. I am very tired in this instant, but will be going upstate tonight, so that is great. k.
March 20, 2014 at 10:44 am
This is one of your best, k. I just came from grapeling’s, where I read a really fine and speaking piece of work, (coincidentally also about trees) and you have given me a second serving of the best here. The opening is tough-feeling,with the fingers becoming part of the tree’s bark fingerprint, resistant and strong, like a tree, but as the poem opens, it becomes so alive. The final image of the doves and their water sound is the crowning touch. My favorite lines are
‘..as if vertical were how I always laid me down,
as if hiding turned me into treasure one might seek,’
but really, there is not one I don’t find expressive and remarkable.
You may be tired, but you are writing exceptionally well here. Safe travels, k, and pleasant homecomings.
March 20, 2014 at 11:56 am
Thanks for your kind comment and kind words. I’m not sure if it’s exactly right, but I was pleased with it. The only time I’ve really had to write the last few weeks have been at a restaurant at night! But maybe that is good because computers are not allowed and I have to use a notebook. I write a lot by hand anyway, but this makes me avoid the temptation to get on the screen too soon, I guess. k.
March 20, 2014 at 4:19 pm
Beautiful poem. I felt it went with the tree. In fact, I felt the tree! 🙂
Greetings from London.
March 20, 2014 at 7:51 pm
Thanks! Hope you are having Spring there. Not quite here. K.
March 20, 2014 at 4:30 pm
cool pic and cool verse as well… i def. feel like hiding sometimes as well… i love the melt with the tree and nature in this k.
March 21, 2014 at 4:41 am
Great stuff, k. This is sort of a verbal poultice for a deep wound, finding room in the grooves of bark to fit a person(a), slaking a thirst with a mourning dove’s watery cry. Hiding is good before attempting to return.
March 22, 2014 at 12:05 am
echoing Hedge et al. I especially like the repetition of water at the close ~
March 22, 2014 at 7:10 am
…another ‘I wish I had written this” for me…I love how this feels as I know how safe that feeling would be to become part of the tree as in ‘always laid me down’…
March 24, 2014 at 10:53 am
Thanks so much. k.
March 24, 2014 at 10:34 am
I delight in opening emails on Monday morning, a collection of your poems … Sigh.
March 24, 2014 at 10:53 am
Thank you so very much, Helen.