Poem: These Woods

These Woods

What know these woods of our passings?

How could we think they should care?

We’ve done little to deserve their compassion

We've defiled them

Scarred them

Pushed them far from our lives

They should have no use for us

But as I stumble along

Head bowed below bare branches

Gathering tinder for this week’s fires

Fires to warm our now somber home

Fires to pierce the desperate chill in our hearts

These woods comfort me

Embrace me

Soothe me with calm, gentle silence

Wrap me in their blessed endlessness

For man is animal

Like fox and deer and bear

Despite our attempts to deny it

Despite our claim to be more

Man is animal

And these woods embrace all of their innocents

Even the wayward ones

They celebrate our birth with their spring

Energize our life with their summer

Acknowledge our maturity with their fall

And mourn our return to the roots with their winter

And winter is here

Winter is here

So together we mourn a return to the roots

Together

These woods

and I

By: Mike Sepelak

4/7/12