Cairn Cove Poems
When the Universe Tells You to Wake Up
-Wake up! I want you to know!
I awaken.
-I want to know. What is it?
-That’s what I want you to know.
Now go back to sleep.
More than Five
Shiro-yoku, forest bathing:
drinking in the forest through
all five senses.
She says: I want more than five.
Hiding
Hiding under a moss rock.
Hiding in a tear-shaped opening in the boll of a sapling.
Hiding in the knock of two sturdy branches.
Hiding in lichen on a boulder.
Hiding in a spore.
Hiding in a pinecone.
Hiding in muck.
Hiding under a brown leaf.
Hiding under a pebble.
Hiding inside a cracked acorn.
Hiding between two halves of a split stone.
Hiding between two mighty trunks of a conjoined tree.
Hiding in a log.
With all of these places to hide,
why are we so in the open?
It is because we can’t choose,
and leave a piece in each.
Youngster
Young hemlock waving its branches up and down
not so different from how the toddler goes, with a need to touch everything,
was that you last night who
caught the glistening sky before it fell
and broke on the forest floor?
Pine Bath
I have pine in all my pores.
There are needles that have become caught in my clothes
and sap has glued my hair to my cheek.
I have a certain look in my eye
and bark flakes in my teeth.
People call me changed.
When I stand still I sway. When I lay, I fall.
I should use soap, take a shower, scrub harder,
I will, tomorrow,
but today,
one more pine bath.
All poems from residency at Cairn Cove Retreat: surrounded by lake and woods, fed and led by savant/creatrix/caretaker Page.