Green Tribe of Belonging

 It's been a busy time here. I started a blog post several days ago, but haven't had time to finish it. So I dug out a poem I wrote years ago. The Cubs are doing well this year (though I was too tired to stay up to see who won last night. Don't tell me! I'll watch it later.)  The other post will arrive as soon as I can get to it, but here's a filler in the meantime..... _________________________________________________________________________ Something Larger Evening dusk pulls me inside to settle into the recliner, the screen in front of me showing my favorite baseball team running the bases. The score is against us, and it is raining on the Chicago field, the other team so far ahead you’d think I’d turn off the TV. But loyalty is a powerful instinct. The players on my chosen team feel like family. With each one there is a bond as they do their best and I’m at their back as I sigh at a strike out, smile when the pitcher throws a good inning, shout with joy at a hom...

  Queen in the Woods The Mother Oak stands at the edge of the park, her wide-spread branches dominating the scene, decades of growth bringing her to her prime, entangled with millions of life forms around and below. Thousands of caterpillars feasting on the smooth dark leaves, and in their turn, birds snapping up the caterpillars for their own feast. Squirrels scampering through the strong leafy branches, and an owl quietly standing watch from a hole midway to the top. The unseen world below the oak’s base is crowded with webs of roots and microscopic life. Mycelium offering up its bounty in return for nourishment, each giving and receiving for their mutual benefit. Over the years, this mother tree has offered her progeny  to the world around her: acorns buried by squirrels, planted near and far, a crop of children still connected to her life force. And she will support them in the abundant mysterious ways of trees. When her life is over, her branches and trunk dying, her body...