Walk Through The Woods

A poem by Tatiana Eva-Marie.

Walk Through The Woods

At dawn I ventured out early April to seek
And I adorned my brow with a crown made of twigs:
Green, fresh and fair, they pearled against my ruddy cheek,
Dribbling dewdrops dancing early morning jigs
To the sleepy sun-sound of awakening birds
And the mossy murmur of silence sung through trees,
Leafy speeches of things that do not speak in words
Yet advise the heart with an earthly expertise.

I had come in search of dirt and stone, of poems,
Of mushroom-tasting skies, rebirths and post-mortems.
I had come with a martial flourish in my mind,
Come to poke with sticks at all emotions resigned
And test my soul against the immovable rocks
That stood face against time as big bright garish clocks.

Familiar steps brought me further into the woods,
And there dwelt the faces of many childhoods,
Tongues out spitting, hearts and feet endlessly racing,
Arms like wings of birds, outstretched, vaguely dream-chasing,
With a thousand fingers on each traveling hand,
Searching the air, the green, the river, the quicksand.

The nerve on their ghostlike faces was surprising,
Their haunting of my memories -- unsurprising.

I longed to sweep myself away by their current
And dive into all, all, all the things that weren’t
Preordained by the ebb and flow of the life-tide,
The hummed eulogy of an early death inside.
No, I longed to scream with flooded mouths “brace yourself!
Emerge godlike and new from the cauldron of the witch!”
And I clung to the trees and the air, suspending
My breath, eager now to rejuvenate myself
And find with golden sun the April morning rich,
Pagan, pure, wet, green, astral and never-ending.