The Backwood

Pale dusty pathways
rimmed in pin oak and white pine,
Brawny red maples,
Old oaks and cream magnolias,
soft white birch shedding
sweet marbled skin.
Lined leaves,
ribbon sunshine
a liquid luminescence
pours purple checked valleys,
floods wild reed,
silent pools,
sparkling showers and blinking scintilla.
Slanting pillars of celestial light
where black flies and star bugs
flicker as dust

Felicitous ferns bent in prayer
Chiming, singing,
whispering Ashram.
Arc of noble dens,
humble stones,
pew boughs.
A world more forgiving than the rest

A place to breathe,
to sleep and to wake,
to begin and to end
To listen closely for the wild geese coming home