Two years ago I went for a walk in early spring in the abandoned lot outside my window. Although it is much smaller than Winnie the Pooh's Hundred Acre Wood, it is a place with its own mysteries. I wrote all the tanka poems below on the spot. The sequence was published by Lynx, a journal for linking poets. During the hike, I was struck by how much the Japanese aesthetic of aware (the pathos of transitory beauty) resembles the Western momento mori.
Asking Passage
asking passage
of the briars,
I step deep into
the hollow forest
trash tells me
that other feet have
trod this trail,
but today
I am the first
windchimes —
tall saplings
bare of leaves
sway and rattle
their branches
a moss carpet,
greening before
the trees
acquire new leaves
and close the forest roof
two dark birds
hopping through
the underbrush,
slated-colored, like storms
without names
last year’s
brown weeds
slowly sink beneath
a rising tide
of new green
“nothing in haste”
the brambles remind me,
gently, slowly,
ease through
the difficult parts
Twitter. 4 August 2009.
robins
the blackness of
their heads
proclaims
the mating season
yellow blooms
of woodland strawberries
darkened for just a moment
by the flicker of
a bird’s passing shadow
woodland hiking —
the youngest shades
of green being born
shining like a mirror:
the end of a discarded
beer can
before the weeds
cover it
try as I might,
these boots
trammel green things;
the crack of sticks
rebukes my heavy ways
stones at the root
of tall trees
covered in moss;
the bones, sinew, and skin
of earth himself
something large
and not human
laid down in these weeds,
made a nest,
and rested a while
looking back,
the trail I have left
is ragged
and wandering,
a stranger to this land
a sunny thicket —
blinded,
I cannot find my way
in shadows
unless I too am shadow
that trail
through a tunnel
of greenery
wasn’t made for
human beings
an orange stake
labeled “control point”
flagged with
blue and white ribbons
in the middle of the woods
discarded soda cans,
“Moon Mist” flavor
next to the stake
that calls itself
“control point”
again that
barking birdsong
I know so well,
but never have I seen
the one who sings it
walking through
tall weeds beside
the highway,
the white bones of
a deer skeleton
surprisingly human
these vertebrae,
legbones scattered
in all directions
hollow ribs,
empty of marrow,
hollow vertebrae,
empty of will,
all things come to this
no skull nor pelvis,
but an empty soda bottle
where a heart should be,
the bones disturbed
before I ever found them
today
I take a path
never taken
that can never be
taken again
tall brown weeds,
their toppled stalks
point the path of
the prevailing winds
the remains
of another dead deer —
the stench drives me back
to view gnawed legbones
and a torn pelt
a nest of dead grass
where the doe first lay,
her legbones torn away
and licked clean by
something hungry
those first bones
were so very small —
without the dead doe
I would have never
known the fawn
a bramble rose
snags my sleeve —
a reminder of
this living world
about to bloom
a faint perfume
from a tree with
pale flowers,
this too is a thing for which
I have no name
clumps of
yellow blooming weeds
in this field
it is I am who am
useless and unwanted
I want to go home now —
this forest no longer
gives me passage,
brambles and deadfalls
block my way
thorns grab
my clothes and
hold me back,
but this rock
offers me a place to rest
this cool breeze,
this bed of wild
strawberries in bloom,
bird calls all around . .
perhaps I shouldn’t leave
in these
freshly toppled weeds,
I recognize my own trail
and follow myself back
to whence I came
after the woods,
the bleeding hearts
planted by
a previous tenant
are pleasantly domestic
pungent green air —
the smell of the woods
clings to my shirt
my black boots
still in the shower,
drying off
after hiking
through the woods
'Asking Passage.' Lynx, a journal for linking poets, XXII:3. Gualala, CA: AHAPoetry.com, October, 2007.
