ENGRAINED
For all trees everywhere...
©2021 Ermelinda Press All Rights Reserved
ENGRAINED Reflections on Trees in Poetry & Art
MARIETTA PATRICIA LEIS
INTRODUCTION The language of trees has to be learned; it is a language of wonder, stillness and reverence. Forests affect the lives of everyone even unknowingly. These works present the beauty, activities and ecology of forests as well the reality of their fragility and exploitation. - MPL
ENGRAINED
Tree Oh majestic tree how safe I feel hugging your stable trunk Although you tower over me you protect my soul from unbelieving
Careful to look up not always at my feet Up to the trees paying homage to my elders
Spring is a paintbrush using all fresh colors, greens of every hue for trees to have new clothes
Love your exquisite vertical form that like a bellows emits the air enabling me to breathe and live
What a contrast as I step into your embrace on a sweltering day You cool my body, soothe my soul relief
Fragrance, shade, food, beauty How many things this lover brings How can we turn away or worse not even notice the bounty offered
Do trees cry when wounded with man’s cut? Is a clear cut forest a Greek chorus? A mournful weight for Earth to endure
Green is the vibrant color of the Earth still living and forgiving
Evident Injuries Looking at your tree trunk I admire its intricate beauty I realize that the skin reveals your life The scars tell the story with the twists and knots reciting your journey When you were hurt changed paths, weathered a storm or experienced a fire It is all written I embrace your history feeling I know you better in an intimate soul way
Peacefully now the reflected trees mirror green and mysterious in the lake’s last light
Measuring yourself by the height of a growing tree? It is a runt now and you arrogant When its roots take hold and it shoots up you’re left behind but with riches of beauty A lost race feeling good
A vertical land standing tall the woods providing warmth and protection For all God’s creatures including the two footed ones Like me
Bowing to the miracle a leaf inspires
Silhouettes of treetops framing the stars of night Picture perfect
Wonder Breathless beauty bountiful pleasures You dazzle Nothing static responding to all others Leaves, sunshine, water they are the same You provide Tasting the sweetness of nature Green, a subtext whose armature supports life You nurture Stand among your friends that care Lift to the rays of light bow to drink Earth’s milk You inspire With regeneration and rebirth
The green carpet, green overhang, a green surround Earth’s pillow allowing us to rest
Where will sustenance and refuge come without the mother of green hair and dress
You work with intense focus Healing the Gulf of Mexico dead zone And the parched African lands Your spirit applauded
Of all the wrong choices I have made and ill-advised actions I have executed I don’t think I ever abused a tree except perhaps by not noticing
Lessons to learn for human communities Trees support and nurture each other They are in a relationship Enviable
Yes I talk to trees. Why not? They are loyal friends and we are in symbiotic relationship Although I truthfully seem to reap more But they kindly are patient that I will learn
Trees The lovely ladies of the Nordic woods have been threatened but stand tall with their brethren Gracefully swaying lending shade, rhythm and continuity to a countryside often in conflict Their courage and beauty inspires us lesser creatures to echo their elegance
Trees compacted In full forests Then edited to a few Then none except on flat beds
Green is the color of $ The growing of wealth and fortune Acquisition Taking and making
Remember to put our hands in the soil to forget that touch is to forget all
Converging so perfectly Earth’s plan fulfilled Where do we begin and you end?
Green Look beyond the concrete and black top Unlock your memories and look to the original world Trees and plants in silence grow bringing forth their splendor for our wordless wonder We linger with you among Earth’s soil Not wanting to be apart from your green caress But careless not seeing the bounty brought forth Shall we not know the Earth for we are tree and fruit And vegetable ourselves Are we divorced from our family orphaned and lost with limbs torn off?
Have I told you what your beauty means to me? Your form, your grace, your elegance. I’m startled as I come upon you and fall to my knees in praise
Verdant symphony of elegant chords reflecting a life force of grace
The wind is fierce meeting its challenge trunks are made stronger
Green dressed estate Budding seeds unfolding
The language of trees has to be learned It is one of wonder Stay still and listen Reverence
Trees in silence grow birthing their splendor for our wordless wonder
I would rather have a tree’s shade cool me than a mechanism that cools the air but endangers our planet Besides we are friends
Verdant paradiso All ripe and ready to spring forth and love
Green whose armature supports life You nurture
The forest doesn’t need me It exists will it persist?
We linger with you among Earth’s soil Not wanting to be apart from your green caress
Reflections of heart leaves outstretched offering peace
A season to grow Another to reflect
Marietta Patricia Leis: Engrained
In the course of a long career that has taken her from New York to Los Angeles and finally to Albuquerque, NM, Marietta Patricia Leis has mastered just about any medium at her disposal—printmaking, sculpture, painting, video, poetry and photography. Her subjects have often been inspired by her travels worldwide: to Antarctica, Southeast Asia, Greece, Iceland, and other far-flung spots. The experiences she gathers from place, whether it’s the humid green of the tropical jungle or the billowing clouds and black-velvet nights of the Scottish Highlands, become distilled into the different series she’s pursued over the years. The common thread is that Leis brings to all her work qualities of elegant understatement, a thorough knowledge of craft, and an approach that marries thoughtful restraint with a sensuous feel for her materials. For Engrained Leis found inspiration quite literally in her own backyard, when a 30-foot-high spruce tree on her property in Albuquerque, NM, died shortly after she moved in. Parts of that tree have made their way into her Engrained visual art series. This work seems to juxtapose the living against the dead, and speaks to the possibilities for renewal and rebirth. Specific trees may have provided the inspiration for many of her works, but Leis’ travels—and her self-description as an “outed tree hugger”—have made her sensitive to the plight of trees in general. She’s flown over the Amazon and witnessed the burning of rain forests; she’s seen firsthand Iceland’s barren landscape, the result of devastation by early settlers; and, like the rest of us, she’s concerned about the clear cutting, wild fires, and deforestation that are quickly eroding our landscapes.
Despite the tenuousness of nature, Leis’ works are also reminders of how much pleasure we get from the colors, textures, and presence of those mute and stalwart citizens who share our planet. In examining all the qualities of “treeness”—from seeds and leaves to the battered husk that remains after a tree dies—Leis gives us tangible proof of the loveliness of these silent gifts of nature along with intimations of how barren our world would be without them. - Ann Landi Ann Landi is the founder and editor of Vasari21.com and a contributing editor of ARTnews.
Marietta Patricia Leis is an internationally exhibiting multimedia artist and poet based in New Mexico. Leis’ reductive, expressive visual practice is shaped out of experiments in material process and takes inspiration from the forms of nature, sense of place, & the internal landscape. Her writing has been published and read worldwide, and often takes the form of free verse poetry & haiku. These personal writings reflect her inner meditations and relationships to nature and art.
Acknowledgments Special thanks to: Ann Landi, Mary Dezember & Patricia Watts for their writings & commentary David Vogel, my husband, for his unconditional support, keen eye, love & traveling companionship The Charles and Edwina Milner Women in the Arts Award, McCray Gallery of Contemporary Art, WNMU, for inviting me to stretch my visual ideas of trees and forests Stefan Jennings Batista, designer, photographer & best ever studio assistant, for his keen understanding of my intentions Ermelinda Fiore Napoliello, my grandmother, for instilling in me a visceral love of the natural world Marietta’s work can be found at: www.mariettaleis.com Her book Pausing, Reflections in Poems & Art can be found on www.amazon.com
Book design & layout by Stefan Jennings Batista
The images in this book are adapted from the author’s original artworks in painting, woodcut printing, cyanotype & photography.