Walking in the woods,
thinking of other things,
so, not really in the woods,
I traveled on a path
that sooner or later will disappear,
among trees that will outlive me.
What difference will I make
to these trees, or this path, or
anything in the world, now or hence?
Pondering my nothingness,
bereft of legacy, I walked,
still elsewhere.
But then that blank was interrupted
by a bird call, unfamiliar,
sparkling, totally without reason.
A few trilly little grace notes
and one clear bell tone,
some kind of prayer or love song.
I stopped. I looked. A flash of brown
may have been it, or a leaf. Then
stillness. Just woods, with a bird in it.
Something flowed up in me,
a spring of clear joy, burbling.
I was back in the woods.
Not the song, but the bird itself,
merely being its little brown being,
singing, hidden, given.
You never know how your mere being
lights someone’s world, brings them back.
I watch now, for what speaks.
The little villages of moss on trees,
the kid who rides his squeaky trike
in the driveway of the old grey house.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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