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.