97. blest in the forest

blest in the forest where you | be

under the hemlock | canopy

right by the water you must | swim

always your body beside of | him

if you can find the star of | night

glowing inside the dark with | light

if you can hear the voice he | speaks

you will believe what of he | seeks

though in enchanted sleep you | dream

everything real is more like | seem

when in the lapping of the | wave

you may believe you’ve found a | cave

down in the depths of the heart you | keep

as you remember all your | sleep

when in the morning you may | wake

not even water thirst will | slake

all you recall from having | slept

is how in your hand your life you | kept

all you believe when the sun does | rise

is it enraptures both his | eyes

 

every other every other | voice

you hear | is every one that echoes

every other every other | word

he makes | is every word you breathe

every other every other | laugh

you hear | is every other breath

intaken | every other every other

thought | you make is every other

every other word | he realizes

every other every other | story

he tells | is every other every other

story | you have already heard

every other every other | motor

that purrs across water | is

every other every other | person

who feels | the rush of life

every other every other | meal

you eat | is every other every other

hour | you have to continue

in this place | as a fact or a memory

 

 

as the loon calls | a warble for a song

and the moon | shines bright on the dark

lake | as the salamander sleeps in wood

rotted to the orange of its skin | as the

insipid partridgeberry-twinberry | grows

into a red heart of two | fruit

as the wind blows north | through the oaks

and east through | the hemlocks

as the mayapples have already | built and

lost their sole fruit | as the chipmunks

scurry into roots of trees | as pollen

grows thick and chalky yellow | in the air

as the seagulls | swing over that one eye

of the lake | too far from the ocean to know

what is sea | as the sunfish swim

essingly through the murky water | as the

thousand milfoil choke and choke | the water

as the | furry beechnuts fall past the green leaves

you will remember | you were once | and often

there | and lived among these woods as a native