The Healing Tree - new book by Joe Tye.

The Healing Tree
A Mermaid, a Poet, and a Miracle

Selected Poems

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A
single
dot in time.
Less than the
time it takes for you to
read this word – less than
the time it takes to die.
In a flash, like a bolt of lightning in a bone-dry
forest, fate roars through your life and it
devours your future and it leaves you bare and
barren and utterly desolate and nothing remains to
sustain you. Nothing. Blue ice enshrouds your soul;
no light penetrates to the dark depths where the pain tears
you apart. Like the brutal sun circling a desert sky, this
blistering agony never never never seems to end. And it
seems to you that God, being busy elsewhere, is oblivious
to your tears. But then, one day, a mermaid comes to you
from a distant emerald sea – and she brings with her
a seedling. And she nurtures you as she nurtures
the tiny seedling that is to become the healing tree.
And she breaks your heart by her leaving but then
she comes back and she invites you come and swim
with her in the ancient seas. As the ongoing
illumination unfolds
you realize that
the healing
was not in
the love that
the mermaid
gave to you
but rather it
was in the love
she coaxed out of you. And that was the real miracle.

Blue Ice
The snow fell and fell – year upon year
Melting, refreezing, condensing – year upon year
Relentlessly layering – year upon year

Ice harder than granite
Ice colder than Mars
Ice ancient as Hades

Glacier ice covering my heart
Trapping every wave of light
Except the blues
The cyanotic sapphire blues

Frozen blue tears break off and
Drift away doomed
To melt in some distant sea

Good Question – a poem
What was before
          the beginning of time?
What happens after
          she writes her last rhyme?
What lies beyond
          the outside of space?
What’s on the inside of
          his innermost trace?
Who was the architect?
          Who wound the clock?
What keeps it all going
          when you’d think it should stop?
Is the infinite universe
          more than it seems?
Awake I ask questions
          that are answered in dreams.

And the First Shall Become Last
You never forget the first time –
That honeydew morning of spring aborning,
When God takes you by the hand and
Shows you the splendor of the Garden.

You never expect the last time –
The basaltine darkness of a dying winter night
When God, being busy elsewhere,
Forgets to wake you up.

Afterlife
Every particle in every body was born at the same second
With the exploding of an infinitely tiny Nothing
Into an infinitely expanding Something
Since the beginning of time
Nothing new has been created
Nothing old has been destroyed
          In the truest sense of the word
          You were never born
          You cannot die
You can only be rearranged

Resting in Peace
I once was afraid of the dark
Of legion black molecules snaking
Into my body through every orifice
Freezing me in a coagulate of despair

I once was afraid of solitude
Of talking to the air and hearing no
Echo in reply to reaffirm my body and
Reify my existence

I once was afraid of confinement
Of tiny rooms where you can reach
Out and touch every wall and
Rub your nose on the velvet

I once was afraid of sleeping
Of the nightmare world that is more
Real than the office and the kitchen and
That holds you petrified against your will

I once was afraid of infinity
Of the distant reaches where space and
Time interpenetrate like a fertilized egg
In the womb of God

I once was afraid in the dark
Alone in a small room
Asleep
Forever

Pretty Bird
Tiny yellow goldfinch lying –
          Dead on –
The side of the road.

Why is it that only the –
          Pretty birds break –
Our hearts by their dying?

And So It Ends…
with neither a bang nor a whimper –
closing the gate, setting the sun,
a sigh, a backward glance, the river bends
disappearing into the mysteries ahead.

I go willing into this dark night, and
would not trade an eternity of living
for having earned the right to be thus dead.

Growing Soul
Take care of your garden, caregiver
Don’t plant it with brambles and weeds
You won’t grow orchids and roses
If in spring you plant dandelion seeds

Take care of your garden, caregiver
Nurture it with kindness and care
Help delicate buds become lovely flowers
With water and sunshine and prayer

Take care of your garden, caregiver
Protect it from bugs and from blight
Walk daily the rows with a vigilant eye
Shelter it from frost in the night

Take care of your garden, caregiver
At its heart erect a maypole
Then dance and sing as twilight falls round
Cultivate this home for your soul

Waiting
I am patient
As nighttime peering toward the eastern sky
As an acorn sensing the fertile ground
As low tide feeling for the pull of the moon
Silence answers: not now but soon

I am patient
As an eaglet knocking on the door of her shell
As a sleeping bear on a thawing day
As a lioness brooding over unfed cubs
Silence answers: it’s on the way

I am patient
As ocean surf pounding sandy shore
As a mountain stream racing down bouldered slopes
As an August fire roaring through prairie grass
Silence answers: just a bit more

I am patient
As lightning on a summer night
As a funnel cloud dropping from a low black sky
As a hole dug six feet in the ground
Silence answers: you better slow down

The Great Divide
Clocks run faster on the distant side
          of the Great Divide;
and you never know when the sun might decide
          to set itself down without fair warning.
On the distant side of the Great Divide
          killing time is a capital crime.

Space contracts on the distant side
          of the Great Divide;
there’s less room for error so you’d better
          get it right the first time.
On the distant side of the Great Divide
          the wrong turn can descend to a precipitous dead end.

The air is clear on the distant side
          of the Great Divide;
You begin to see the trail that leads to the place
          you are meant to be. Walk fast.
The distant side of the Great Divide might be
          closer than you think.