I wrote Rosewood to Redwood after a weekend visit to the California North Coast. On the lengthy drive home, to pass the time, Bert refreshed me on the rules of sonnets, and I've written a number of sonnets since. 

Rosewood to Redwood appeared in the Spring 2009 issue of Music for the Love of It as well as the September 2008 issue of American Recorder.

It is an Elizabethan style sonnet, appropriate because the sonnet contains imagery from early music songs, particularly from the the Renaissance composer Thomas Morley (recorder players will recognize this).

Editors, please contact the author if you wish to purchase this poem for reprint.

Rosewood to Redwood  
by Dorothea Barth 2008

Of fire and lightning rosewood flutes discourse,
A serenade from distant times to you,
More ancient than the music’s gentle force,
Did elemental thunder split your trunk in two?

When lo, by break of morn, a sacrifice,
As fragrant rosewood fell instead of grew,
To bring to life our pipes, let joy arise,
And celebrate your majesty anew;

In misty month of maying did we meet,
A brief encounter in the north coast’s land,
Our madrigals we placed on creviced feet,
Your trunk a welcome weathered music stand;

O redwood tree, your wisdom can’t be wrong,
Did you prefer the silence or our song?

Other music poems by Dorothea Barth posted on this website:

Steiner Street

Ancient Music for a New Day

Concerts

Seeking Kokopelli

Horse of Russian Winter

Key words: Rosewood to Redwood, essays and poetry of Dorothea Barth, Dorothy Barth Northern California wedding violinist, Dorothea Barth, Freelance Writer, California North Coast, recorders, early music