In the Woods

A long time ago
In the blistering winds of the winter months
I could hear the echos of songs a mother would sing
I plugged my ears to keep the sounds from fading
And when they finally did, 
the world would come to an end. 
And then the world did not come to an end.
It is something I learned

As autumn faded her spirit contracted
Dark patches fell on me too
Nothing the stars, pines or the little pond could do about it
Then without even noticing, there was a shift
Lonely came with no alternatives
No choice but to be content with what was happening
This basic truth hurt but it did no good to run from it
Reality on its own terms
It is something I learned

There is no place more intimate than the spirit alone
With only the moon's reflection 
You are forced to discover and rediscover 
Your deepest measure
The tender and vulnerable corners of the inner world
And then live with the shaky in between states
It is not easy to become what one is
To live one's truth
It is something I learned

And what about love?
Would there be another soul who can be moved by the same constellation of metaphor and meaning?
One who could share a dimension so sacred it could only be one of truth and possibility?

The only path is to trust the hours and the days
To have confidence in your own ability and capacity for love
Accept that there is no greater thing than love

Reflections

I was six the first time I understood what it meant to be alone. My mother was unwell in ways a child doesn't have language for yet. So I would go into the woods behind my house. I'm not sure if I was escaping, exactly — I think what I craved was predictability, and the woods had it. Bark, birdsong, the sun streaking through the pines — these became a kind of familiar company. Eventually I brought a notebook, and the writing did something the solitude alone could not: it turned a feeling I didn't have words for into a voice I could trust. That trust, built page by page in the woods behind our house, saved me in some ways and is the same one I still lean on. I wrote this poem quite a long time ago. I learned so much from the woods about the world and my place in it.