Saw some Giant Redwood trees walking in the grounds of Emo Court last weekend. They are quite young compared to the ones in California – only 170 years – being planted in 1853, but still an impressive size

Some of these trees have been here since Jesus walked on water

Some of these trees have been here

since Vikings drove their boats

onto the shores of Newfoundland…

Some of these trees have survived lightning strikes and forest fires…..

They have grown beyond

their trauma and focus now

on the daily climb, the adding-on

of needle and bark, on nature’s drive

to rise above and see beyond

until the day when death will fell them

and the earth will add them to its riches.

We can be like these trees, pull on the layers of living like fine

new garments, house the needy

in the caverns of our grief, grow

beyond the stories of our scars

stretch our branches toward the bristling stars.

Tamara Madison, American poet, Sequoia Sempervirens [extract], from the A Year of Being Here blog