(A poem from the woods, sorry, I have posted this before, but have been thinking about it since posting it up on substack, where I am going through the chapbook poem by poem. This poem was quite a journey)

The poem:

Snowlight lead the way
On this path I know by day
Finding the night where it lay
Soft crunch under my feet
Ghostly shadows entreat
Go where it ends
Meeting my oldest friend

The sun just starting to rise
Through a cloudy sky
As I slowly open my eyes
It’s all around me here
These things that I fear
Whispers in the wind
Confront my only sin

So I make way
To have a say
And if I sit very still
I hear the lonesome trill
The mourning bird song
Telling me I belong
To this haunted wood
That has always stood

Here deep in the pine
I feel the slowing of time
Slowing my heartbeat
And my wandering feet
In the stillness there
If I listen I might hear

My name?
Can you remember my name?
Is it still the same?
The one I always claim.

This poem is the heart of the book.

Why do I watch these woods?

There are many answers, of course.

But in this poem it is remembering my name

Meeting myself at the end of a long path .

Meeting myself alone in the woods.

This poem is a song, and the music and the words came together almost effortlessly which doesn’t happen often.

If you find your way here, welcome to my strange little corner of the internet where magic still happens sometimes.