by Dave Matthews

How would I explain a forest to
Someone who has never been in one –
The trees and the wind thru them,
The birds and their songs and
Their acrobatic flight about the branches.
The smell of the last time and
The time before and the time before
That, that I was in the woods. The
Sound and the silence. The peace
And the crunch of the leaves and the branches
On the snow. The sound of a stream or
A woodpecker or a squirrel disappearing.
And the trees reaching up and up
And up to gather the sun and turn
Light to air, to jigsaw the moonlit winter
Sky. The trees like a fortress for the natural
World. What if I could not take my
Children for a walk in the woods.

Happy Holidays and Wilderness Soaking ~HSG

Join the Conversation

2 Comments

  1. I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discovered that I had not lived.
    Henry David Thoreau

  2. Oops. Edit:
    I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
    Henry David Thoreau

Leave a comment

Leave a Reply