Sunday, April 25, 2010

George Ella Lyon - Trying To Get Out Of My Tree

TRYING TO GET OUT OF MY TREE
by
George Ella Lyon
(according to the Celtic Tree Calendar
my birthday makes me a Willow)

How about a willow
         that doesn’t weep
that spikes her green tresses
         and carries on sturdy
like some punk oak

or gets that groovy bark
         like a hackberry

O willow
what if I don’t want to be
weeping
or witched
what if I want to be

royal like the oak
strong enough to be a ship

or abloom with love
like the apple

or sacred like the pine?

Am I stuck here
by the water
enchanted against my own
willowy
will?

©2010 George Ella Lyon. All rights reserved.

George Ella Lyon writes everything from picture books to plays to novels to poetry (for children and adults) plus she teaches, sings, and loves caramel icing. Does there need to be more? But there is - her books have won bunches of awards and been "best book" listed numerous times, and she's managed to write about everything from creating poems to lullabies to trucks and more. Plus... today's her birthday!

I love the layers and textures of Trying to Get Out of My Tree, the perfect mixing human nature and mother nature. Besides appreciating the poem on its own, it also inspired me to try and write a "tree poem" and to experiment with other perspectives, too. In other words... it showed me a new way to view a part of the world, something I find much of my favorite poetry does. So, happy birthday to George Ella Lyon... a poet I'm thrilled to have here as part of 30 Poets/30 Days.

Yesterday, brought us Ars Poetica by Georgia Heard. Tomorrow... One of the Many Stories by Jacqueline Woodson! For more on 30 Poets/30 Days and ways to follow along, please click here.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wonderful poem and writer! And, I'm an Ash...

Anonymous said...

Agreed, wonderful poem -- and that title!

Lee Wind, M.Ed. said...

I gotta say that I LOVED this poem. Make that LOVE. Wow.
It speaks to how I felt as a teen, for sure.
And yet, it's about trees!
(I'm gonna have to stop laughing at that Barbara Walters question now, I guess...)
George Ella Lyon is awesome.
Thanks so much to you both,
Namaste,
Lee

tanita✿davis said...

Whoa, that tree calendar stuff is complex. I have to say that I'd much prefer to be some punked out tree (Hawthorne? Acacia?) than something weepy - but this poem makes the reader chuckle and think - we none of us must stay and be what someone else thinks we are...