Early Spring Woods

I think that there is a spirit of place, a presence asking

to be expressed; and sometimes when we are lucky as

writers, and quiet in a way few of us want to be anymore, 

a voice enters our own . . .

        - John Haines

  

 

 

 

Paths already losing their way in overgrowth,

 

All the old sounds and songs returning again

 

From their long pilgrimages, but too the feeling

 

Of being closed in, having no sense of direction,

 

Not lost but insubstantial in the abundance of

 

So much renewal I in my years no longer feel,

 

And I miss the unadorned solitude of winter,

 

The trees still and not hidden in their leaves,

 

The shallow stream settled in its ice and stones;

 

How each sound seems to come from everywhere,

 

The cold light holding it up in the air and any way

 

You turn is to come closer but never quite near

 

Enough to enter into it, a rising and lowering note,

 

Almost nothing more than an exhalation, an owl

 

Perhaps, something still yet going on and on.

 

And how it is this voice is not visible, the puffs

 

Of breath that would let me see what it is saying.

 

All these years and still I would have no answer,

 

Always only just arriving again, lost for words,

 

My unspoken passages, hearing what moves

 

Unseen in the quiet air, nearer and farther than

 

I can go, still listening to see it when it comes.

 

 





Poetry by countryfog
Read 632 times
Written on 2015-04-23 at 14:12

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Jamsbo Rockda The PoetBay support member heart!
Very nice. It gives us the feeling of being there. It almost sounds as if you do not want spring to take over.
2015-04-25


Lawrence Beck The PoetBay support member heart!
This is a very nice poem, Fog. Still, I prefer the exuberant vivacity of spring.
2015-04-23


one trick pony The PoetBay support member heart!
i love the echoes created between you and the many poets you find to quote as a stepping off point.

i will quote my dearest han shan in response to your magical poem:

I have all the vestment I will ever need,
not gauzy silk or twill,
and if you ask about the color,
neither red, nor purple . . .
In the summer it's light as wings;
in the winter it's my quilt.
Winter or summer, of use in both . . .
Year upon year, just this.

~~~

thank you for your beautiful poem, it made me cry.
2015-04-23



This has its own exquisite stillness.
I'm almost scared to breathe lest I unsettle something.
Beautiful:)
2015-04-23


josephus The PoetBay support member heart!
Earlier this year during the back half of winter, I spent six weeks bush whacking through the winter woods in a local conservation area on back country skiis; about an hour or two a day. I cut trail, there was no one else there in the whole time but me. The silence was acute. Even my barely made a sound. One day I worked my way back into a section that as very remote. At first I saw nothing but the forest and then almost magically, deer appeared. I believe they were there before I was but were invisible until one moved slightly. There were six fawns and does. All no more than twenty feet from me. We stood entranced with each other,motionless for probably fifteen minutes until one doe casually turned and the others followed. Only alone in the winter woods would this honoring of each other occur. Your exquisite poem brought this moment back and provided the impetus for writing this. Thanks, my friend.
2015-04-23