When In The Woods I See Not Life...

Be still, and know that I am God.

Ps.46:10

I craved a quick woodland-soak this morning

before plunging into Sat. tasks...

To delight in simplicity is quite enough to satisfy 

When in the woods I see not life as sinister or crude or mean

Where the bird is a minister and the tree, a four-season queen

The air is like a silk scarf drawn through draughty awnings overhead

And the unruly little tongue is content to leave words unsaid

When in the woods I see not life as happiness to hurry through

No scales to weigh or mark success by what we do or fail to do

The frantic chase toward twilight's brief eulogy subsides, leaf-hushed

I am content with the insight of Nature's poetry, unrushed

When in the woods I see not life as battlefields for more or less

The creature is cut downs to sighs and yields to solitude's caress

Where factual epiphanies eclipse the graveyard-gilded dust 

As I gaze up, up past the trees into the Almost Face I trust

When in the woods I see life as a grand sandcastle, briefly leased 

The shock and ruin of dreamlands commands attention like a feast

Of effortless tranquility, like treetops reaching for the sky   

To delight in simplicity is quite enough to satisfy 

When in the woods I see not life as something to dread or adore

But rather like a gift that soon becomes a mem'ry, nothing more 

And here I am content to pledge to keep my wants humble and few 

To count it as a privilege to grieve the loves that once I knew

Janet Martin

a few snap-shots from previous woodland-soaks...