Faith Kaufhold Ray: Tree Grace

Tree Grace

Dear Ian,

The last logs are burning down this morning in my fireplace. It has been a brutally cold week. I've watched the snow come and go twice; seen patterns of ice and frost form, melt, reform, and disappear. Sometimes a crack appears on the surface of a melting puddle, displaying half-rotted leaves and organic matter, framed like a perfect art piece.. As it refreezes, delicate new designs form in the fissures and cracks.

It is as if someone has drug a cold finger

Slowly along the surface

Sketching lines for the frost to follow.

Snow humps up in my dry river bed on top of the ice, for some reason ; it seems to undulate like creatures alive and moving under a blanket. Round areas of mud and pebbles are magnified, and everywhere the colors have changes from the taupe and dead grey of winter to cool shades of azure, lavender, and a most pale French blue, shocking against the cobalt tones of mud and exposed damp wood.

Everything seems to inhale and hold an icy breath.

Even the clouds have surrendered all warm tone.

And as if tired

Of all this cold

Sky breaks open briefly;

And the sun butters everything...

The ground

The trees,

Frozen puddles,

Dripping eaves.

The world is slowly beginning to thaw.

Earth beneath is oozing and seems oddly warm, alive, moisturized.

I've gone through 3 years of firewood in a week; two whole cut-up trees and some additional kindling accumulated from tidying up my lawn.

The first tree fell two years ago in the woods headed down to the river. Chris and Payden came and cut it up for me. I remember how good it was to to have them here.

I remember wishing you were out there helping too, hanging out with your big brother; voices and laughter rising like steam from the woods. That particular tree heard your laughter for 23 years....she was probably 80 years old. Maybe your sounds are logged in her bark and branches?

As I think of her, and you and Chris and the proximity we all shared, I marvel that she is now a very fine log being lapped by flames; keeping my living room warm this morning.

The second tree threatened to fall this last year, dropping slabs of bark and branches suddenly...... even whole limbs along the path down to our river. I don't know what killed her; maybe age....too much water (or not enough), but she pushed her remaining energy back into the ground and died very quickly.

My friend Bill (who once held your small boy hand as you gave him a tour through the yard), proudly rendered her into fine triangular pieces in exchange for a haircut. He was really proud to help me. He loved you. I can see the two of you walking under her so long ago and wonder if she knew you'd be gone before her.

I miss that tree. She was one of my favorites, standing just to the right of my path down to the river...roots "contra posto"; one long knee draped over another cross legged, making her appear to stagger. She hugged a huge rock for dear life as kids looked beneath her for Easter eggs, and as kayaks were dragged across her bottom parts.

Dying more suddenly, her logs were fresh and moist and green.

In my fireplace, she burns slowly, making pops and hisses....

Both give unexpected warmth in their final act of giving.

I stopped writing just now to go outside and feed the birds, and noticed how the light reaches in the holes my two trees left behind in the sky. I think for a moment of the first words you gave me through Paula three years ago....

"Everything was set in motion before time."

There are gifts in the passing of precious things.

Trees die,

Ice storms wreck havoc

Young men and neighbors come to help...even my English friend Jamie fixed my well so I can take a shower again.

Gifts are somehow strategically put into place, specifically, perhaps.....for me.

Hidden like Easter eggs

More manna than chocolate candy.

God keeping the engines tuned,

Giving back when life gets taken away.

Most days I miss them, these small graces. Most days I am too buried in the minutia of life or in the weight of grief, to notice their presence. They do not populate my mind as much as they should. Perhaps the coldness and relentlessly dismal weather is whispering for me pause to clasp hands together and bow in gratitude to two trees, some friends, my living son, and my son beyond living.

And as the snow melts, and my fire burns down, and my water comes back on, and I take a shower to go meet a friend, I think of the odd synchrony of all this.

Beauty finds me and I am grateful.

I don't feel so alone.

Even though most of the people I once loved have drifted away, my real tribe is still blanketing me.....A colorful and funny-shaped crochet throw

A tapestry