A Place in the Forest

An opening in thick growth one comes to,

dead end mostly, trail having declined

without your notice, ideas fallen away,

a thick wall of festering luminousness.

For some the deeply scarred bark

whose flesh-folds hide moss, lifetracks

of the least weasel, a snake skin.

For others only vines thick-meshed

as family, obligation, that Sunday

when she lifted her hat by the lake.

Even the natural lair of minotaurs.

A darkness hovers beyond, seeping in,

leaves like years are laminated

underfoot, and the sun spirals down

an electric chimney of space. How easy

to feel with the same lost conviction

of faith long folded with father's hands,

there is no decision now to be made,

no word to be frightened by. Only here,

a gently green wind at the dry lips,

recognized by your body that slowly

is pouring itself like oil down.

After this dream of sitting for years,

there is the casual look for hacked

scars of machete, or perhaps that

runnelled and rusted lid of a tin can

once slipped painlessly into your heel

now booted and safe. The needle stung,

you limped for a time. Thinking back,

as if each knoll and root were a clue

unapprehended, the trail seems a dream,

but each step so vivid the least blade

must remember and wait to tell someone

you had come. But what name will be given?

Lying in this space you feel you know

what a great-uncle does day-long

in the whining belly of the Titanic.

It is not unpleasant but very personal

like a belief. You are sure no one

waits on the wall's other side. No word

exists beyond but will be yours, fully,

as it was, once, when you were a child.

You spoke at last, but they had gone

far off in the absence of the house.

There was only your small pink face

speaking into itself, and the word,

shaped to catch the world, only bodiless,

and mother's plants hanging like a wall

about to close on the night-black window.

Now there is the lightless beyond again,

one keeps turning to face it, as if

there will always be one more room

in the world, silent just like this,

as if when you arrive there, alone,

it will be exactly as you have wished,

except empty in the towering light,

the kitchen, voices and smell, not right

under the staircase. But you feel easy,

as if standing at the back porch, as if

shutting the gate, latch not forgotten,

to the alley. Already your body gathers

its spilled oil like an old kerchief

pulled from the air's sly pocket,

a memento from an uncle, close-woven,

useful, unstained, coiling at the throat.