Stand the Sacred Tree

A book of travel and nature, birds and water (or the lack of it), the joy of life and the sorrow of illness; Stand the Sacred Tree has its genesis in Weier's previous memoir, Marshwalker. It grows out of the questions he explores and the opportunities that are offered. Weier travels widely-to Syria, Iceland, Holland, Denmark, and in Canada-and wonders at what-if anything-connects these places and their diverse landscapes and cultures. Icelandic horses, Syrian cab drivers, and, of course, birds; he never stops thinking of birds. He discovers people obsessed with place, with travel; each destination, each trip without exception leading to another. Each new landscape brings new exotic birds and flowers, new friends. Yet everywhere there is something haunting and familiar. Excerpt: Horses and the Midnight Sun Those dazzling Icelandic horses! We haven't driven too many miles after our breakfast on the harbour in Reykjavik before we see them. Icelandic horses, large herds of them-- seldom in ones or twos--colourful herds of horses. Icelandic horses spend most of their life in the herd. Horses, sprung and fed and foaled in their gravelled and grassy pastures. Pinto. And buckskin. Palomino and chestnut and bay. White horse. Black horse. Silver dapple and silver bay. Paint horse. And blue or strawberry roan. Forty-two different colour patterns, according to the literature. Horses, and their half-ragged coats, early spring, still shedding their winter fur, pale clumps of hair scattered on the ground and dangling from the fence-wire. Everywhere, Icelandic horses running on the moor. With their five natural gaits. Walk, trot, canter, the famous tölt, the flying pace. Those horses and their tolt the pride of every proud man and woman Icelander. Found on www(dot)poets.ca