Poetry from “It’s the Trees” by Don Ogden

A Family Tree

We were truly free
you and me and
seemingly everybody
friends who broke rules
and fools beloved or
not so free bound to
their tribe or commonality
we drove too fast past
rules and class beautifully
young in love with each
other and some of humanity
as if forever in my dreams
you all come back to me
a different sort of family
growing rootless branching
out touching hands or more
in the throbbing night or
resting by the sea I see you
and others gone wherever
ever so greatfully.

          – for the loves of my life

Roots

It’s called a family tree but it’s hard to see
much similarity though we all are here
on and in this land in need of air and
of course water and beings we do not
see moving about us and on us here 
seemingly forever and ever even as we
humans cut away at them for warmth or
utility without much thought or empathy
trace your relations truthfully across
the land and sea into the soil and depths

Don Ogden lives on heavily forested land in North Leverett, where he has been developing deep roots since the 1970s. Along the way, he discovered that his surname, Ogden, derives from the old Saxton name, Oketon, which is roughly translated as “people of the vale of the oaks.” His new collection of tree-related poems, “It’s the Trees,” is available at Levellers Press or from Amazon.