Walk in the Winter-woods

Maybe it’s the hush as it traces dappled spaces

Dripping from lofty and bare-naked limb

Or the meekness of nonchalant hemlock fingers

Strumming the hour in a reverent hymn

Maybe it’s the absence of mortal creation

In this sanctuary, not made with hands

Where winnowing winds murmur kind, tender mercies

Softening duty’s despotic demands

The nuthatch flits from its tree-hole safe-haven

The language of leaf-song has slipped to the earth

Yet the breeze slides through the turrets of summer

Teasing the silence with evergreen mirth

Maybe it’s the absence of primal persuasion

Here, in the off-spring of Eden’s paradise

There is no clamoring intimidation

Where century-shaped pillars reach to the skies

What is it about a walk in the woodlands?

This beautiful garden bereft of cruel strife

Where shoulders, care-weighted upon our arrival

Are no longer bent beneath burdens of life

Time charts its discourse of four-season struggle

The woods are a glorious four-season reprieve

And perhaps we all would remain carefree children

If we wandered through the woodlands every eve

© Janet Martin