Just past the post,
keep walking.
Let your neck flex,
eyes raise, and
lock on a few future
intents.
Have patience.
Be gracious,
unfazed.
Then, step away
from devices.
Let loose
from disguises and
expect some fatigue;
face to face
is hard
with all of
this noticing
without
notifications.
forest
rooted
I am in rut. in a groove so long it’s not possible to determine if I'm following or being followed. the sun always finds me waiting for it to warm this tract, worn and winding with edges soft enough to keep me cradled. to keep me safe. any wandering outside, along the topside, is short lived- I don’t like to demystify for the scrum, this emotion of being more satisfied than settled. wanderers and seekers pass by, disturb my leaves, scuff my stones, bend and break my blades of grass. and all the while my rabbit sense of predatory presence- a vibrant florid hunger for escape- holds me still. some see oddity in the way I loll in the ruffage, my hands buried deep in the loam. but to my nose and eyes, a long measure of the proportionate balance in clay, sand, and silt can only be achieved surrounded in burrow. gravity both pulls me towards the ground, under its leafy carpet, and draws my hands to my face to scry the forest's pulse.
lattice
the misted air freezes on my beard. i can feel the crystals stitching together. small tugs weaving water against my skin. the physics of these molecular agreements reminds me that small things make themselves known in wonderous ways. like the joy i get from winter walks in the forest, with my daughter, that gently pulls my mouth into a smile.
hyoid
i keep getting caught in the space between knowing a thing and understanding it. forests are full of reminders of the unseen. of distance between. reminders escaping meaning. like how that woodpecker eyed me before i, he. or how i heard him, before he, me. i drew to him as the echoes varied. high low high low fast slow fast slow. in alternating tones. the pound from his sounds was designed to save him from headaches. like this forest does for me. it separates the mind from the pain. the 'here we go' from the 'again'. but i just had to know more, so i googled for a bit. a woodpecker's skull sits on suspension, has seatbelts to hold its brain in place, and the pace never pecks in the exact same space. peckings had stopped, but were still chased around the green by echoes. and it seemed like the moment was here and everywhere. just like the unseen. suddenly i was two feet from his workspace. interrupting his meal, my eyes fell into his, mid grace. my meaning making started and i believed the bird wanted me closer. he chose here to stay and wait a bit longer. and the longer i stood the clearer it became that actually 'no sir' was his message as he flew off abandoning me there.
stand
what grows from a buried heart? a stand of spruce birch oak in silent congregation impart like elders leaning in sharing upstretched dignity. bent by wind clenched by cold quenched by rain young and old maple pine swapping stories signaling forgotten times and fragile futures. i imagine the secret of trees is that they see themselves like a family in the forest ensouled entwined and buried root down still dreaming in seeds.
less
