Wood-Solace, or A Return to Belonging
In winter the woods
can seem desolate—
monochrome and naked,
aside from the beech
leaves rattling
in the breeze like
dry bones—
but actually I’m the
one who came
parched and hungry,
desperate for calm.
So I walked through
the creaking trees,
alongside a woodpecker’s
hollow hammering
and the scolding
squawks of herons,
past freshly nibbled
signs of beaver and
dammed-up water
blue with reflected sky.
I examined lush mosses
and shadows holding
onto last night’s snow,
scribbles of gnawing
insects who burrowed
under long-gone bark,
and I scanned the horizon
for Canada geese, whose
honks resounded in the
great gully. I kept walking
until my sorrows got smaller,
more remote, and I
myself became part
of the wood again,
welcomed home as
though I had never left.