To Lay Down in the Middle of the Forest When You’ve Lost Your Way

Earlier today a dear friend asked me about poems that have to do with the forest. And I remembered one I wrote a little over a year ago, part of my A Green Language poetry project (no longer up, but hopefully a printed book before too long!). 

It came to me almost entire in a single sitting one July morning last year, as if spoken by a kind and gentle old woman in a time when I very much needed such kind and gentle words. 

It seems we need words of gentleness now more than ever, so I share this with you here in the spirit of hope, and of another way which is not fighting, which is not part of the binary of good or evil, us or them, but something other, and older. 

To Lay Down in the Middle of the Forest When You’ve Lost Your Way

Never forget that it is all

the pilgrim’s path, that you are walking

a long, long way, that whatever

end you think you are seeking has

already changed its name, and is

not the end that’s seeking you.

On good days it will seem a romantic,

bright thing, this adventure, your boots

thick with mountain dust, a cane cut

from hazel in your hand, a rucksack full

of apples and oatcakes given to you by

someone who loves you on your back,

and on those good days you will think

the easy path goes on forever through

the open, that spring hills will always

be green and the kestrels always hovering

on amber wings.

Of course you know better:

that it’s only a spring stroll if you never

reach the forest, and no adventure at all.

It’s only a spring jaunt for wildflowers if you

don’t fall down on your knees and weep.

And nowhere is it spring forever.

You will find the pinewood inevitable.

The path will dissolve into a hundred paths,

each made by deer. There will be no waymarkers

and no stars. Your rucksack will feel empty,

and you will lose your hazel cane and

all the songs you ever learned

in the face of what scares you, in the face

of what is ugly in your own heart, in the face

of what is tearing the world to pieces.

Many will tell you to forge onward, to show courage,

to fight back, to look for signs on the duff, to not

stop moving for fear of cold, to not give in, to seek

the sunrise through the trees, to tell yourself

something stirring, something bright, to run away.

This is all well and good but most often the forest

isn’t done with you yet and fighting it is like netting

wind; all you will achieve is a tattered pair of boots,

an aching heart, a fresh strength of despair

and the sunrise no closer.

That’s just it, says the humus when you’ve

come at last to your knees.

Ah, say the pine needles when you begin to weep.

There, there, rest your head, as you cry out for help,

for guidance, for mercy, that the box opened long ago

might be closed, and as you lay down in the middle

of the pinewood in the depth of your sorrow,

whatever its name, the earth will swallow

you, and it, right up. Do not be afraid.

You are not dead yet.

All you must do is lay down just there

where you’ve lost the path, and

you will be taken into the heart of things

where three women tend an ancient pine tree

and a spring of hot water that bubbles up

from a vent in the earth. They will coo and fawn

over you like a little child, they will strip your

roadworn clothes, they will send you and all the

unwanted guests in your soul into the earth’s

hot water to be made beloved again.

After a long while, as long as it takes

(for they have been singing old lullabies

in a minor key and you may have been asleep)

they will help you out and dry you off

and rub you down and comb your hair

and braid it new and in that combing you will

hear a thousand blessings sung may you be

well may you be safe may your mind be gentle

may your way be bright may your thoughts go

gleaming may you measure your worth and

your days not by hours spent or money made

but by the quality of light in your soul and

how often you have asked yourself

what you might give away.

They will dress you in the dark skirts and aprons

and beads and leather slippers and long

embroidered vests of your ancestors and then

they will press a lantern in your hands and point

your way back up through roots and badger dens

to the surface again, to the forest where you lost your way.

Your rucksack will be full of strange new flatbreads,

a flask of mead, a pouch of tobacco,

a book of poems from very long ago.

You may still wander the forest a good deal

longer, but in a different manner, looking carefully at

the leaves of the many trees, trying to identify

birds by their songs, or where the bobcat walked.

You may gather the golden resin that falls

from the pines to ease your aches, or sit

quietly for long hours listening for the

voices inside the creaking limbs. You will have

stopped your striving, walked a hundred

figure eights without complaint, made a web of

your own footsteps, for once undesperate and slow.

And then all at once without warning you will

find the edge of it, a meadow beyond, and the

sun coming up. There it will be again, your path,

shining through the grass, gilt with dew, easy

as morning, unruined, unhurried, but just in time.

(c) Sylvia V. Linsteadt 2016