Boreal - Jan 25 2021

 

Boreal

Jan 25 2021

I live, by choice, in the boreal forest

in a house in the woods.

Where there are, at most, 20 kinds of trees.

And here, just 9 or so,

shouldering up toward the sun

and crowding against the shore.

The air is clean, but the weather harsh,

and the forest floor

stony and sparse

in the cool damp shade;

glacial till

and thin sandy soil,

or hard impervious clay

atop ancient bedrock.

So if landscape determines us

I must be narrow, stunted, tough.

Perhaps adapted to fire.

Which burn hot, but brief

in the short summer months,

an act of creative destruction

that culls decadent trees

and tangled underbrush,

but is crucial

to renewing the soil.

I find a small patch

open to the sun

where a warm dry bed

of pine needles and fallen leaves

have accrued over the seasons

like sedimentary layers.

I lie on my back

looking up at the clear blue sky

and feel myself dematerialize,

my boundaries softening

and diffusing ever outward.

But I cannot see the roots

anchoring the trees,

the great fungal network

that spreads beneath the earth,

the microscopic flora

churning the soil.

The animals,

who either quietly observe

or furtively retreat.

Perhaps this is me as well.

The contours and landmarks

that are plain to see.

And underneath, the inner self,

hidden from sight

and teeming with life

and mostly unexplored.

White spruce, black spruce, balsam fir. White, jack, and red pine. Cedar, aspen, silver birch. And tamarack, all of which I planted. Yes, that's 9 or so. Such an impoverished diversity, compared to more temperate zones, let alone the tropics.

The poem began with this idea of landscape. Do climate, flora, and the lay of the land shape us? How much of an effect do our natural surroundings have on us? Our is it that we chose our landscape, seeking out desert, or seashore, or cool green forest? Or are we confined to cities, and see nature only in her manicured and managed forms?

So, am I narrow, stunted, tough? Do I really have such unplumbed depths? And do I remain because of inertia – the path of least resistance – or because I fit, and have found a home here?