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Fir trees  are ancient symbols of eternal light associated with the Winter Solstice and the return of the Sun.

Now it’s December when time seems to accelerate and diary dates fill with activity as many of us head towards the Christmas/Winter holidays. I think of all the sacrifices the coming festivities exact not least the fir trees soon to be chopped and sold in the market place, mostly rootless, and baubled till the New Year discard. No wonder Robert Frost in this poem is reluctant to sell his Christmas Trees to the City buyer:

“My woods—the young fir balsams like a place
Where houses all are churches and have spires. 
I hadn’t thought of them as Christmas Trees. 
I doubt if I was tempted for a moment 
To sell them off their feet to go in cars 
And leave the slope behind the house all bare, 
Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon.
I’d hate to have them know it if I was….[more]

William Logan’s recalls childhood memories of Christmas Trees:

“Through blue frozen lots
my giant parents strolled,
wrapped tight against the cold
like woolen Argonauts, 

searching for that tall
perfection of Scotch pine
from the hundreds laid in line
like the dead at Guadalcanal. 

the clapboard village aglow
that starry stark December [more]

So yes you’ve guessed it….

  1. The poetry theme for this MTB is to write a poem about a generic or particular:
  • Christmas tree(s) imagery, meanings, memories etc
  • or Conifer/Fir tree(s) imagery, mythology, memories etc

2. The poetry style of your poem follows the form of an Etheree:

  • must be an unrhymed poem
  • no specific meter
  • one stanza only
  • 10 lines with no paragraphs
  • graduating from 1 to 10 syllables
  • [add lines 11 & 12 with just 2 syllables per line – my optional extra]

Thus the first line is monosyllabic; the second line has two syllables, and so on, until there’s ten syllables on the tenth line (then reverts to 2 syllables for lines 11 & 12 if you want this optional extra). The outline of your poem takes the concrete shape of a fir tree. Centre it on the page else left or right aligned it’s only half a tree! (X=syllables not words)

X
XX
XXX
XXXX
XXXXX
XXXXXX
XXXXXXX
XXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXX
XX
XX

N.B. This is the original simple etheree, there are other permutations but we are not using any of those for this prompt

Useful Links:
the Etheree
list of words by syllable count

We have not hung this etheree tree out since Victoria Slottos summer post of 2016

So once you have posted your poem according to the guidelines above, do add it to Mr Linky below then go visiting and reading other contributors as that is half the fun of our dVerse gatherings.

[Mr Linky closes Saturday 3 p.m. EST]