Out of the Woods
I went into the woods
because I wanted
to live
like the words of Thoreau.
But instead of finding
modifiers in the leaves
or metaphors in the wind,
I found – how can I say it –
an untapped consciousness
that escapes me even now.
I unwound the binding wires
and stripped the soft coating
until it pulsed like a thing alive.
Steam rose towards my nostrils
like incense burning at the first ritual ever performed by mankind.
I was in every ancient city,
in every golden era –
And I lived among the pillars of every temple. And I held them up with my bare hands.
I can’t say if I moved, but I felt
my lightened body edge against foliage
tinged with purple hues, fiery hues –
both ends of the spectrum and all the stuff in between.
It was regal, it was sad, it was violent –
And I felt my face glow, knowing the honor
that comes with the ability to see all three at once. All of nature clutched me to her heaving chest,
cooing the verses of the greatest poets
into my defenseless ears.
For the span of an infinitely long unknown
I was ranked among the best of them
because my ears, my heart, my tastebuds
were gorged with sense.
And I was left, my body bursting
with things to
say. but
my tongue was limp,
and I choked on every line I felt
so real in the pit of my stomach.
I spit monosyllables into the dirt –
poetry crackled in the sky
and fizzled out in mumbles.
But
I had felt it!
the realness all around me…
The rush and air of balmy breezes…
The furtive breath of leafy coves, people-secret…
The salted vapors misting freckled foreheads…
The burn and red of invented stars
sprawled across the universe…
I was in it for an infinitely long
unknown, I had kissed eternity
and meant to return with the meaning of life –
At least the meaning of the leaves.
I followed them into the woods
because the world had let me believe
that I could exist
as a poet with only the raw sensibilities
of the untamed earth.
I followed them because
it’s easier to devour
feeling than poetry,
to stuff the senses
with passion-food and light,
feeling against neurons all the jumbled syntaxes,
stretched over ellipses,
half-shut eyes, languidly showing
the world your way
with adjectives –
your reawakened genius.
I left the woods because I wanted
to live deliberately.
I left because I wanted
to put it on paper, and
I wanted to know realness the way it’s meant to be known.
