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 Taking a break from hauling holly I follow a towhee
The savory comfort of Madrone teaked limbs peeping From branched bends promises
Each laurelled bend, hemmed with emerald ivy whispering to ankles, Stimulates these woods forward into recollection. And having traveled these paths to the point Where each may be magnified even from afar, I know it to be a place I know. Path contours hillsides... Dip... and turns to precipice. Often a thought of Wendell Berry's percolates with these woods: Slopes and drainages hold trails to intimacy, A mode of travel lost under pavement. For these woods recalled were wilderness. A boy and a merry band Tumbling down dunes of carpeting ivy Blackberry swaths immense Whole regions inaccessible Black holes in topography. We would harvest laurel berries, perched on a giving limb. Plucking hard and brilliant water-green ones. Perfect things of handfuls. To pile and cache, to pile and cache, to throw at one's friends. After careening down and scrambling up, water from the stream tasted like water. An oasis in residential pavement. Duly revered. I am thankful for this wilderness. Now we plant ninebark and Indian plum. I know where to watch wrens nest. And ants disperse trillium seeds. And following a towhee through beckoning paths. by Andrew Holm, 2000 |
