The Painted Forest/ Bosque de Oma

It was once

A place with lamented trees,

That materialized like tears in your eye,

When Agustín Ibarrola of Guernica said,

“I gave away time,

When I became addicted to your whispers,

Lost in a gamble with art.”

The concubine always knows more of love,

Than those who tell her stories,

 

            The forest spent her life alone,

            Branches made of bone and her heart starved,

            Until one day,

            An artist tripped over her boot of grass,

And used his soul to dry her crying eyes,

Fell in love with everything and settled for nothing,

A sensitive artist with a bucket full of passion,

Displaying harsher tones of a hard man, forgotten,

The two parallel and consigned to oblivion,

The feeling of elongated time,

And all of a sudden,

Everything in the world had a reason,

All of our projects,

Are worthwhile endeavors.

 

            There is no better feeling,

            Than breathing in deeply,

            An astonishing air,

            A breath that becomes you,

            Where a red tree of free,

And a green blanket of sky

Become a commodity of trees,

Here I give you,

Seventeen memories of mine,

Each painted in a stem,

More than a hundred exclamations,

And not a single word,

Can describe this part of the País Vasco,

And like Picasso said himself,

“Guernica illustrates the tragedy of forgetting

As a result of having to live without love.”

Reviews

[Fuego31]

The personification of the forest seemed to bring me further into the poem. I love the metaphorical imagery, it formed such a clear picture in my mind; I kept seeing beautiful emerald and chocolate brown. The love story was so alluring. The historical references were very clever. I'm still trying to figure out how many themes are in this, very impressive.

[Edurne]

Thank you so much! It was inspired by an actual forest in the North of Spain in the Basque Country with actual painted trees.
It was a breathtaking place to visit.