I’ve come to feel that we’re not truly isolated as long as we’re in the company of trees
leave the way you came
early sun on old snow, the wind
speaking in the high trees — welcome
move slowly in stillness — listen
completely. carry only respect
and reverence. leave
the way you came
© 2020 jafink/oldbonesnewsnow.com
laughter and tears
we were once shiny, undented.
had baby after baby with limitless
perfect futures. we had answers, speed
and never enough time. we
were accelerating. last night
fall came to this mountain,
the face of the grey man
peering through the glass. this morning
we sit beneath a weakening sun
the leaves blowing about our feet
like so many small broken things.
your hand is warm in mine, and just so
am I blessed — so little survives
beyond laughter and tears.
darkness falls.
the trees across the river
draw down their blood in silence,
brace themselves for winter.
© 2019 jafink/oldbonesnewsnow.com
in these mountains, winter tends to linger, teasing us with spring followed by a new layer of snow…
winter’s end
each snow covered branch
is like a phrase in the erratic final chapter
of winter, punctuated
by small dark birds, confused
by the storyline of the season.
while overhead, three geese
skim the treetops, crying out,
lost in this featureless white world,
desperately searching, like so many of us,
for a safe place to land
© 2019 jafink/oldbonesnewsnow.com
Note- some poems are prompted by a word or a phrase, perhaps an experience. This was suggested by an impossibly beautiful tree deep at the head of the unfortunately named “Negro Bill Canyon” off of the Colorado Rive near Moab Utah. 
red stone
by the time we reach the top of the canyon
we’ve walked through most of our words
this trail of sand and stone, the solitary blooms
of tattered desert flowers. this deep in the canyon
all light is reflected, shattered light,
passed from rim to rim until it settles like mist
luminous dust, a dry and brilliant rain.
we never know what we’ll find in the deepest canyons
of our lives like these incandescent leaves,
such improbable green, or this stone, the rich red
of freshly oxygenated blood, the red of iron and of time,
of pressure and erosion, the true red of benediction, the hard,
hard red of redemption.
©jafink/oldbones.newsnow.com
Recently had a chance to spend a week retreat at Karme Choling, the Shambhala meditation center in Barnett Vermont, one of my favorite places– early season snows, ice, darkness and light.
I’m old enough now to see
how I’ve lived my life in dogs,
each a sun-warmed stone
in this stream of loneliness.
by these have I kept my feet dry,
have I so far made it across.
I look into the brown eyes
of my young black dog,
and can’t help but do the math.
My heart breaks in the knowing
of that distant day when he tells me —
it is time. When do we begin
to die? not at birth, surely,
there’s such a rush to life
for so long, but it slows somewhere,
somehow deep inside of itself
it starts to slow, until one day
as we sit together talking,
this slowing shows itself
in our faces, in our eyes, in our first
clear diminishing, and then we know,
yes we know. We’ve had a week now
of cold nights and windy mornings
the clouds dropping down, scraping
the tops of the aspens, stripping them
of leaves. Snow will come soon
to these mountains, but for today,
I still have this chair by the stream,
still the sounds of the stream over stones,
still a black dog warming his bones
in the late day sun. for today,
this is sufficient. for today this
is wealth enough for a life.
©jafink/oldbones.newsnow.com
speech
they say that trees speak
to one another, sharing food
and energy, life,
a manner of teaching;
that there are mother trees
who pass the last
of their richness to their children
as they die.
this
is deep speech,
unfathomable speech,
the speech of darkness
of water, wood
and of stone.
stand at the foot
of a thousand year pine
and listen to the wind
as it sings this tree.
then close your eyes
and open your mouth-
ask of the wind
to sing into you.
enter the grove at morning
before the heat of the sun
mutes the day — the ancient ones
still speak, still sing
in birds and wind,
in shadows, leaves
and rain. this was once
your speech,
is still
your speech.
enter the grove at morning,
before the heat of the sun
mutes the day — feel
the deep green speech
of this world — pray
once again to be worthy
of trees.
© oldbonesnewsnow.com/J.A. Fink