i cried in Walmart today
because a lady with a floral lighter sampled candles
cinnamon
for the pancakes you made
ocean breeze
for the trip you never took me on
pine
for the forest you burned down trying to fish
and then a sickening combination of all three
The forest was a peaceful place
Always bustling with life
Never stopping, forever moving
A world that at no time did stop.
Many creatures had come and gone
From fearsome giants, to tiny souls
As time marched on, so had they
Leaving new beginnings behind.
So it was, in that quiet wood
That one day the ground did rumble
And the critters scattered about in terror
For they knew not what was happening.
What now came this way,
The animals wondered.
What new creations were coming
That could cause such a ruckus?
Enjoying nature
Enjoying forests, birds and the breeze
Enjoying music, reading, traveling
Enjoying looking, listening, feeling, touching –
I realize -
More than this joyful spread before me
More joyous is this gift, so special,
To find joy, to discover beauty
In matters all, piddling and profound.
Deprived, denied of everything
Of riches, of senses
Even in darkness I will remember
The light, oh life, you shed on me.
I will hope and wait
With the glow of happy memories
Warming, keeping me alive.
I get the feeling that he's very high.
I get the feeling that he's coming down
slowly. I see him float
into the forest. His study
surrounds him. I see clear pine trees
pierce his glass-like palace.
His form bent over
a manuscript;
his mind.
bent over a pencil.
I hear the parachute
but never see it fall.
Eileen walks slow
in an empty
place
breathe around her, the
world is off to four
directions, and I wait
and I listen for her
to come by branches
in forest where I'm hidden.
who she is, who
ever she will be
I wait in the corner
of her eyes.
rabbit cross shadow line in field frostcover,
marmot under the stone
coon begging in Yosemite Valley
hiking
out of sight
of pines & view of pines
& long snowfooting woods
ass down to beaver
pond & gathered puzzle
grass
round
slender ash some
beaver cat axed /
hiked out.
my heels
at my heels,ground
spruce,
patches of quartz
in the fields raising up
Smiling in his Stihl chainsaw hat,
had the arborist saved the tree
from itself or from me? Had he
saved my house or my neighbors’
from the heavy limbs? Maybe nothing
was ever going to fall, he told me
gently as I wrote the check
and we looked up admiringly
at his work. When he left,
I called to tell you how I knew
I was the tree that fell in the forest
and nobody heard it. So did it
make a sound? You said, Mandy,
it made a sound, and you heard it,
so tell me all about it. I told you,
I love you and I will.
As vain to raise a voice as a sigh
In the tumult of free leaves on high.
What are you in the shadow of trees
Engaged up there with the light and breeze?
Less than the coral-root you know
That is content with the daylight low,
And has no leaves at all of its own;
Whose spotted flowers hang meanly down.
You grasp the bark by a rugged pleat,
And look up small from the forest’s feet.
The only leaf it drops goes wide,
Your name not written on either side.
You linger your little hour and are gone,
And still the woods sweep leafily on,
Not even missing the coral-root flower
You took as a trophy of the hour.
These pools that, though in forests, still reflect
The total sky almost without defect,
And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,
Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone,
And yet not out by any brook or river,
But up by roots to bring dark foliage on.
The trees that have it in their pent-up buds
To darken nature and be summer woods--
Let them think twice before they use their powers
To blot out and drink up and sweep away
These flowery waters and these watery flowers
From snow that melted only yesterday.
Your love
was a warm, yellow light
shining through white windows
of a green cabin
as I stood alone
at dusk
in the black forest
of my loneliness.
My body ached from weariness
my soul cried out for comfort
I entered
I thought that smiling mask . . .
that lovely smiling mask . . .
was you.
I asked for food
you gave me dried bones on a wooden platter.
The music dies upon the strings
But lingers on
Like other sweetly treasured things
Here once - and gone.
The breeze that blurs the mirror pool
Cannot erase
The outline of the forest cool
Upon its face.
The haunting fragrance of the flowers
Of yesterday
Not all the intervening hours
Can steal away.
And loving friends we used to know
Nor e’er forget
Although they left us long ago
Seem with us yet.
I am the Minister of Leaves who writes memos in re:
deciduous policy. I strike compromises
between the forest and the trees.
Someone in the Ministry is singing a song,
a green song as insistent and calm as
succulent leaves in the Amazon Basin.
I am promoted beyond bureaucracies
of my own beliefs, am carried
on melody to ancient stands of timber.