Seeing Things In A New Light

Reflection                                                                                                           16^th November 2012

Sometime on these short wintery days when it gets dark at about 4.30pm, we can get a bit despondent.  Natural light or indeed the absence of it definitely seems to affect mood.  We’ve heard about SAD, seasonal associated disorder, so it’s no surprise that lack of light can cause depression, and yet it was in the depths of winter that I was surprised to see something in a completely new light, almost as if seeing it for the first time.  This was a very large tree close to where I live and totally bereft of leaves, and  it struck me that sometimes we look at things and yet don’t really see them and perhaps it is when we experience darkness, that we are closer to illumination, to truly entering into the eternal present and so I wrote the following poem, and below that I leave you with those beautiful lines from William Blake.

Winter Tree

Driving down Eglinton Road

I asked myself how come

I’d never noticed you before?

Certainly not in winter

When you stood out in front of me

In your nakedness

I wasn’t expecting beauty

In bare winter branches as you stood there

Doing your treelike thing

Of sprawling upwards and outwards,

And as I gazed at you more intently,

You sent me your defiant winter vibe:

“I’m here starkers beside the dual carriageway

No fancy gown of leafy green for me these days

Take me or leave me just as I am today”.

Like a prizewinning piece of sculpture

You spoke to me that day;

“Hey you, WAKE UP

You’ve never seen me like this before”.

Published in Static Poetry III and News Four

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour.

William Blake