I had stopped myself at noon, amused On an abandoned track that moved Through a wood no longer used, Through waste acres of a watershed 5 Cloven by a regular runoff where Clarity was wildered by wild briars. Until a hidden water's hissing Showed that something else was missing, One never would have wondered 10 That anything there had harkened At the juncture where briars darkened As if by deepness of the angle At the midmost of their tangle. Something moved beneath the plane 15 Where the interrupted track regains The far oasis of the wood, Something going crossways where I stood, Crossways to my onward motion. I stood without a blessed notion. 20 At the very precipice I paused, And waited to see if what had caused Me to arrive there once Would cause me to hurry further on. I listened to what I could not see, 25 Water in the dirt continuously Spattering against such hazards As its pattering traversed. I spied the farther side, which seemed Indifferently like where I was indeed, 30 A wood moving on to wood, A leafy dark neither bad nor good. A tree, once proud upon its ridge, Lay translated into a bridge At my left, and the track repeated 35 Its pattern as it retreated Past the tree's, an oak's, fallen crown Stripped to wires on the farther ground. I put my foot, and it seemed To hold upon a mossy cloud 40 With just a warning creak or two That subsided like morning dew. Another step, another crack And I was airbourne along my track, And the whispered waters loudened 45 To an almost-roar unshrouded. This was something, then, a place Unusual in the closed-in space That gives woods a closet feel Of uncomfort, of bodies real 50 But mentally disposed of, The way we take our clothes off And refuse to see them wrinkle Any longer as real people. Had the slope been undermined, 55 Had the tree been dealt an ill-timed Blow by lightning an age before My feet had brought me to this shore? Whatever the history, I took A naturalist's close firsthand look 60 At the detail that feeds the mind When mind's to thinking first inclined And all the world's a wonder As perpetual as thunder. There's an art, a large art, of course, 65 Comprehended in just looking close. The moss had browned to gold, it seemed Unfed by any mist or stream Despite the pounding of the sound That made a pulsing all around 70 Centered in my ears. Still firm,- So then, just a dry summer's harm, No more, curable by summer storm Soaking live roots back to greenness, The dieback of a season's meanness. 75 An ant with an aphid hat hurried by Anxious of her fresh supply. Another step, another, and hushed Came the crumble where foot had crushed The intradose of a termite arch 80 (Found more often in a fallen larch); A colony of teeth in such bone-hard wood! Whether bored, or because they could, I could not know, and understood That even in a thing so small 85 I myself could not measure all By limits of my comprehension. But now, done with desecration, (Or, more optimistically, Aeration of the tree) 90 They left to found another nation With colonists from this way-station Who pack up their idea of home And take it with them where they roam. And now the whole tree was hollow, 95 And houseless hoot owls inward followed. Also into this interesting Emptiness, came bees without a sting, Carpenter bees who hustled and tore Termite tunnels to a larger bore 100 For their solitary parlors Conveniently near both briars And water. Who'd've thought there'd be So much of life in so dead a tree? I had gone down upon my knees 105 In my investigation, pleased To spend my day in something other Than myself. I wondered whether, As I stood again on what stood No more, if I should include 110 What was father on out there Now I had come thus far to stare; My thoughts surrounded me like fog In the middle of the ruined log, As unsteady of my footing there 115 As unsure of my going.... Where? I peered a step just past my place And conjectured farther on a pace; The path behind was twice the gauge As the dwindled path on the next stage. 120 It seemed that most upon this track Had come this far to double back. Well, I never have had more regard For that stepper Kiekegaard Than for my other walkers in the wood, 125 Intending to walk on as they should, Instead walking only as they do. I kicked a little nothing from my shoe And made my balance come and go, Unsteady and unstable how to go, 130 Uncertain and unsure how to know, Kicked a something from my other shoe, And in the end continued onward, too, As few had chosen here to do, As all who are not only bones may do. 135 To keep unlost, as doubt to doubt You wander roundabout your route, Simply do not doubt your doubt.
From the collection "Assembling the Earth"
Written by Gregg Glory [Gregg G. Brown]
More information available on gregglory.com.