Tree Line

Up to the tree line

Where the bitter wind was broken

And the sun whispered on my forehead

I crawled beneath the brush

dug myself a womb in the dirt—

Maybe to sleep, maybe die,

to be held, sheltered

In this hollow heart of earth

May I dream the meaning of life

As I hide like a baby from birth

Like a Fox in the winter

The wind, the birds, the unseasonable snow,

I can hear them all, speaking, speaking, speaking outside my hollow

but I don’t know what they are saying.

The water seeping beneath the rocks, the traffic far away on the highway, my cold ears, kissed by

the insistent wind,

A slant of warm sun touching my eyelid,

I don’t know what it all means

Though I want to, so badly.

What does this all mean?

This dying. This birthing.

Nature does not respect my ego

The stag will not bow its head to honor my existential death

And yet, the great silent gaze of the forest may witness my trembling heart, unspeakably

The scented, perfuming air, my bowed head

The soft, cradle earth, my broken life

Perhaps even nature holds its breath when we cross this threshold

Inspired by:

All of them are inspired by the poetry of Rumi (e.g. any number of collected poems of Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi), David Whyte (e.g. River Flow 2012), Rilke (e.g. Duino Eligies 1923), Gerald G May (e.g. The Wisdom of Wilderness 2006), Parker, J. Palmer (e.g. On the Brink of Everything 2018), and by the book, the Spell of the Sensuous (David Abram 1996).