Monday, June 10, 2013

THE WOOD

After so much forgetting
we are glad to sense we need our maze,
the lay of our veins, still closer than ever,
still warm, dark, unexplored
at its innermost core,
 
in our swishing on we
talk and hush –the same
in the quiet pressure of the oak’s stare,
inner sky arms holding
the squirrel’s stiletto stillness
 
and on the ground a scurrying, in the old leaves
while the garlic flowers breathe
their own grid of loosened chains
fully stinging and fulfilled, upward
through threading sunbeams.
 
We are glad to be walking drunk
with sun and shadow, with their
interweaving on each shred path
at the crossroads, on beehives of tracks
testing the heart,
 
our gaze both straight in front and inward
with its marvelling range of irises,
we are glad to have to make a choice,
glad of the roads not taken
for now, sure that the maze
 
will wait biding its time, mud sparking
on directions we’ll dig in the undergrowth
of our wish, just needing
this start back, its dark green
and, where knots of sap lure and sting,
 
the deep fluttering, the call
of barely seen wings.
 
This poem, written several years ago, has come to my mind reading the latest post in Crafty Green Poet's blog.

2 comments:

Dave King said...

This is superb. I wanted to quote from it, but really I could have lifted the lines from anywhere. I found it totally gripping from the first stanza onwards. Lovely and enthralling.

Crafty Green Poet said...

Lovely poem, I'm glad that my blogpost reminded you of it!