I pause in woods one winter day when leaves stick to the ground, and twigs and trunks stand stiff & straight - a breeze the only sound. It's a world without walls or bounds, but one can't see a mile. One's sightline is obscured by trees -- their trunks not single file. A world, at once, open & shut to eyes and ears and mind. But I've never felt so at home, for i'm no lonesome pine.
despite all the trees in this densely packed forest, it feels lonely.
In rustic cabins far away from here there live some happy people of the woods. With ruddy cheeks, they're exemplars of cheer. They never visit cities selling goods. They live on what the forest can render, and that's not so much, but it is enough. They tune themselves to nature's vast splendor. In cold, they don skins, but when hot, go buff. Or, perhaps, I lie, and no such people exist in this world or any other. And woods people fuss on matters, fecal -- just like you, I, and all our grandmothers. These cheery, simple woods folk must exist, if only in the mind of this fantasist.
I've never been lost in the woods, though I've been lost so many times. I've been lost in my neighborhood, and I've been lost within my mind. You say the trees look all the same. I say that's some speciesist shit. No. I don't know the trees by name, but that doesn't matter a whit. I've never been lost in the woods: lost means wishing to be elsewhere. Lost is all about "woulds" and "coulds." But I'm not lost if I don't care: don't care I don't know this exact spot, 'cause I know precisely where I'm not!
a park at night. the shadows are darker because of the light
in the forest -- the forestless forest -- planted by hand
autumn afternoon. the sun penetrates deeply, feeding the grass
thin canopy woods.
light hits the grassy ground
and it glows green
the !n(tro)verted yogi 