Forest Meditation

A poem from my writing course at St. Basil's College of Writing

This was done as part of our professor Paul Kingsnorth’s course, Rewilding Your Words. Please subscribe to read the full piece.

Release now the song of the tree frog, the cricket
Shake the raindrops onto the path, and not the path’s edge
Let the river calm into ripples so the deep boulders can be seen from the clifftop
Grey skies, lower your mist onto this mountain top and nourish us from the summer’s drought

We will offer the year’s last flush of green even while
We suck the vigor back into stems and trunks for winter food
Even while we leave the reds and golds to romance the lichens
Before the harvest falls to the ground

Insulating the burrow for the field mouse
Softening the tunnel mound of the vole
Sweetening the juice of the sassafras for a hungry doe
The crows may caw their antiphon now