Woodland

John Cornwall

Winter,
and the midnight
foxes are sleeping.
Somewhere,
under bracken,
whole lives occur

without reference
to mine.
I have to imagine
insects and wild
flowers, grasses
as tall

as me, bending
and bending
in high wind,
vying for the sun's
affections.
Amongst

the birds and flowers,
the lives of insects
and tall grasses,
I am absurd.
I have nothing
to do

with anything.
Maybe, one day,
when there
has been, for me,
a final sunset
I might get

to know this place
properly, its richness
and long
histories passed
to me like a father
to a son,

and I would hold them gently
away from death and murders,
away from everything
until the time
arrives to listen
to the sound

of the earth breathing.

The 2River View, 1_3 (Spring 1997)