Paths we follow
Belong to others
Buy safe passage through strange lands
But separate–
Protect secrets of the forest
Where shining eyes watch,
Pricked ears listen,
Stay strangers.
A path we make is ours,
An immersion, a baptism.
Long ribboned grass
Brushes our knees;
Small creatures scurry from our footfall
Pull a furrow in the surface
Of that green ocean;
Fireworks of grasshoppers
Burst around our strides
Until we cross the border
To a stiller kingdom.
There, tall spirits rise like pillars
Of some pagan temple,
From days when the Parthenon
Was mere stones in the hillside.
Old friends, conspirators, they whisper
In language falling
Like rainspatter on a lake.
Amidst their shade, we may find
A patch of sun, a glade of ferns
A mossy stone to sit on
The birds will hush awhile
But in time will sing again
And we can rest, and wait
To meet whatever comes.
- Lisa Kole
Lisa Kole is an emerging poet, painter, licensed wildlife rehabilitator and wildlife advocate. She lives at the edge of the Wild Sundown Forest in the Catskill Mountains.
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