John C Ryan

Seeing Trees John C Ryan

"... I walk inwardly / A while towards eternity. ... / The seen was not a scene / But a sensation. The trees' old way of seeing / Bore winged seeds within my being."
("I Turned the Corner and Entered the Mind of the Forest" JCR)


A collaborative current of respect for the earth, steeped in the forests of Australia--poetry and art rich in science, humanity, philosophy, and memory. Like the Lorax, Ryan and Phillips speak for the trees. What does it mean to be a tree? Perhaps it is time. To look and to listen: "Maybe strange passions moved in us, prompted / by these groves to kneel, loving moonlit land?" ("Coastal Peppermints" GP)


Peopled with Noongar, Wadjuk, Jdewat--we sense our part in the vast history. With the trees, we claw: "skyward towards a portal of light" ("Inside a Jarrah Tree ..." JCR). Tension fueled through the human propensity for destruction, unleashed as through raging bushfires. "And then the startled crack / of the still-burning heart / of a once-living casuarina. / ... We shutter behind eyelids / each lingering backward glance / to the fire we let consume us." ("Charred Ground" GP)


Poems assume shapes of mighty sheoaks and charismatic balgas, orchestrated with primal percussion and intricately layered language. The reader explores the literal limbs of poems as their forms reach out like branches and leaves. Masters of sculpting the intangible onto the page, Ryan and Phillips help us explore new ways of seeing and listening. An invitation, youthful traveler--rise out of the sea, inhale eucalypts, taste dust and sun, glimpse a leaf.