Forest in the Brain

Cherry

By Jane Hyphen

Fri, 30 Aug 2024
  • 401 reads
10 comments
 

 

I need something for the shade

Where it’s deeper, colder

I’m not expecting flowers

A pair of leaves, a small sign

But nothing grows here 

Beneath this canopy of oppression

Suppression, her self-hating cousin

Made space for tall nightmares

They bolt from fertile ground

In search of an opening

But it’s all closed up here 

Tight lipped, so quiet in this forest

 

I walk, avoiding the old time thorns

They always hurt

Hardened over time, like iron

My tools, blunt now

I cannot cut them off

I know the faces in the bark

Eyes, always looking back

I let the wrong things grow here

But I remember blossom

Bursting brief, bright and scented

And I turned away from the rest

It flourished in these walls

And the creeping doubts

Wrapped around every start

Strangling optimism

 

It’s still beautiful here

Occasional storms

Break an old branch

And there’s a chink of light

A green shoot upon the forest floor

 

Certificate U
Poem

Comments

Submitted by celticman on

remembering blossom brings about the healing heat of growth. 

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

There's always next year's blossom and another year to bear fruit but the years seem to be shrinking, celticman. Thank you for cherries.

 

Submitted by Mark Burrow on

Enjoyed this, Jane. 

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Thank you, Mark.

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

I empathised with both sides of this, the real one and the metaphor.
It feels so wrong to cut things down, when they have reached to the light high above the fence, but their flourishing up there stops any light at all getting to where I am, so it is dark and dank and all you can see is bare talks in the shade. Everyone who "encounters" my roses thinks they are nightmares :0) If I was them, I would want to reach above the fence, too! Perhaps in my garden they symbolise hopes I never see fulfilled

The more I read this poem, the more I enjoy it

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Hi Di, thank you for reading. I like it when people let their roses go wild and they grab people as they walk past and say, 'admire me! I won't let you go until you smell me!'  I came across a garden centre selling half price trees and have planted far too many. It's selecting what should be pruned hard and what can go wild, both in the mind and the garden but it's my experience that both may turn on you.

 

Submitted by Penny4athought on

I think I took a different walk through this poem. One that was only in the mind, imagined. Where all things spark, light and dark.That forest was haunting; its ability to spring forth optimism and its penchant for snubbing it out were well established here. A thought provoking poem and so well written Jane. And I hope the light comes through to warm all good thoughts and bright happy spirits dancing in the moonlight of your wildest dreams and hopes. You are a prolific writer, run with that. smiley

It flourished in these walls, And the creeping doubts ,Wrapped around every start, Strangling optimism

 

Penny4athought

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Thank you, Penny for your lovely feedback. I think your interpretation is similar to what was going through my mind when writing, a journey through what we propagate in our own thoughts, both positive and negative.

 

Submitted by marandina on

"Beneath this canopy of oppression

Suppression, her self-hating cousin"

You have a penchant for using metaphor within nature, Jane. And you do it very well.

Layers within the lines and leaving the reader to arrive at their own conclusion.

"I let the wrong things grow here

But I remember blossom.." The essense of life, perhaps.

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Thank you, Paul. I wonder if nature is a reflection of everything we feel or the other way round, either way there are lots of metaphors to mine for.