The way through the woods

Source: Favim

They shut the road through the woods

Seventy years ago. 

Weather and rain have undone it again, 

And now you would never know 

There was once a road through the woods 

Before they planted the trees. 

It is underneath the coppice and heath, 

And the thin anemones.

Only the keeper sees 

That, where the ring-dove broods,

And the badgers roll at ease, 

There was once a road through the woods.

Yet, if you enter the woods 

Of a summer evening late, 

When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools 

Where the otter whistles his mate, 

(They fear not men in the woods, 

Because they see so few.) 

You will hear the beat of a horse's feet, 

And the swish of a skirt in the dew, 

Steadily cantering through 

The misty solitudes, 

As though they perfectly knew 

The old lost road through the woods.

But there is no road through the woods.

~ Rudyard Kipling

To Look at Any Thing

Image: Wild bleedingheart by Bransford, W.D. Mrs.

To look at any thing,
If you would know that thing,
You must look at it long:
To look at this green and say,
"I have seen spring in these
Woods," will not do - you must
Be the thing you see:
You must be the dark snakes of
Stems and ferny plumes of leaves,
You must enter in
To the small silences between
The leaves,
You must take your time
And touch the very peace
They issue from.

~ John Moffitt

To Look at Any Thing

Image: Wild bleedingheart by Bransford, W.D. Mrs.

To look at any thing,
If you would know that thing,
You must look at it long:
To look at this green and say,
"I have seen spring in these
Woods," will not do - you must
Be the thing you see:
You must be the dark snakes of
Stems and ferny plumes of leaves,
You must enter in
To the small silences between
The leaves,
You must take your time
And touch the very peace
They issue from.

~ John Moffitt

Reckless Poem

Source: Unknown

Today again I am hardly myself.
It happens over and over.
It is heaven-sent.

It flows through me
like the blue wave.
Green leaves – you may believe this or not –
have once or twice
emerged from the tips of my fingers

somewhere
deep in the woods,
in the reckless seizure of spring.

Though, of course, I also know that other song,
the sweet passion of one-ness.

Just yesterday I watched an ant crossing a path, through the
          tumbled pine needles she toiled.
And I thought: she will never live another life but this one.
And I thought: if she lives her life with all her strength
          is she not wonderful and wise?
And I continued this up the miraculous pyramid of everything
          until I came to myself.

And still, even in these northern woods, on these hills of sand,
I have flown from the other window of myself
to become white heron, blue whale,
          red fox, hedgehog.
Oh, sometimes already my body has felt like the body of a flower!
Sometimes already my heart is a red parrot, perched
among strange, dark trees, flapping and screaming.

~ Mary Oliver

Reckless Poem

Source: Unknown

Today again I am hardly myself.
It happens over and over.
It is heaven-sent.

It flows through me
like the blue wave.
Green leaves – you may believe this or not –
have once or twice
emerged from the tips of my fingers

somewhere
deep in the woods,
in the reckless seizure of spring.

Though, of course, I also know that other song,
the sweet passion of one-ness.

Just yesterday I watched an ant crossing a path, through the
          tumbled pine needles she toiled.
And I thought: she will never live another life but this one.
And I thought: if she lives her life with all her strength
          is she not wonderful and wise?
And I continued this up the miraculous pyramid of everything
          until I came to myself.

And still, even in these northern woods, on these hills of sand,
I have flown from the other window of myself
to become white heron, blue whale,
          red fox, hedgehog.
Oh, sometimes already my body has felt like the body of a flower!
Sometimes already my heart is a red parrot, perched
among strange, dark trees, flapping and screaming.

~ Mary Oliver