Lady's slippers are the provincial flower here and rare. We're told not to transplant or pick them. A couple of years ago we found a wood with thousands of them in it, embedded in a moss carpet under spruce trees that looked like they'd been trimmed and cared for. Other signs of this care included benches and bridges and a pagoda. It was such an amazing sight we gathered together our friends to come and look at them last spring. Just as well they saw them then. Because this year that wood has been clear cut; piles of timber cover the snow, the moss and the lady's slippers. I'd written about walking there with our dog a couple of years ago.
Listening to The Trout
The sound of the trout as it slides upstream,
darts under the roots of the tree trunk,
then glides through the dappled water:
Turning upside down on the bridge
my eyes become the stream soaring up
into the green grass and the forest’s feet.
Star splashes suddenly off the bank,
dashing this way and that in search
of the darting forms whose delight
she could never have imagined.
When we call her back to the path
she‘s energized, hops
bunny-like along the moss,
twirling her stick over her head.
A sound like distant voices
calls Dah Ta! lingering on the upper note,
falling onto the lower,
a sound that then becomes a far-off
scream, a saw’s bite into logs.
Our feet pass softly on the monk green
moss flowing smoothly beneath the trees,
a wide peaceful stream of green,
then crunch and rattle on dried leaves
rustled under the soles of our feet,
and the wind, silent till now,
makes a sudden rush.
There are no words
but the music flowing around us
is like joy.
I wrote again after this winter's discovery. There's a surprising fatalism comes with destruction. There's the piled timber; one world's gone, there's another. But ... Hopkins: "as the heart grows older/It will come to such sights colder/By and by, nor spare a sigh/Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie; " But.
Worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie
as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder. – Hopkins
But I do sigh. Though it’s all business -
the workmanlike mark of the trucks
as they went into the forest, cut
timber, firewood, stacked it in orderly
heaps on the earth sweetened with boughs
of spruce. It’s all well done by decent men
doing a good day’s work. But I do sigh
for the monk whose realm I’d thought it,
for the carefully cleaned out undergrowth,
the tall straight trunks, the moss green
under it, like a careful carpet, in spring lit
with lady’s slippers, acres of them, for
the benches placed in odd turns in the path
dipping and rising through the fragrant wood,
the pagoda at the end looking down over
the brook crossed by a bridge leading
only to pathless woods on the other side,
the banks cleaned and green, the trout
swimming up the sparkling stream, the small
tidy dream of man, trees, water, coexisting,
each helped by each. I do sigh
for the monk, imaginary, or old and lost
in another time, for the lovely vision,
for the lovely trees, their whispering branches,
their light and shade, the dappled waters
running through, the silvered darters
lightly passing, for their paths, their clarity,
their lightness, their beauty, abundance,
order. Was it the woodcutter who made
this world of his woodlot, waiting
till it grew up and came to the end
he’d been knowing all along would come?
I sigh. I don’t make my living from the land,
but only walk through the woods
with my friend and my dog, only delight
in the illusion while it lasts that the trees
are free, are their own world, last. I do sigh.
Listening to The Trout
The sound of the trout as it slides upstream,
darts under the roots of the tree trunk,
then glides through the dappled water:
Turning upside down on the bridge
my eyes become the stream soaring up
into the green grass and the forest’s feet.
Star splashes suddenly off the bank,
dashing this way and that in search
of the darting forms whose delight
she could never have imagined.
When we call her back to the path
she‘s energized, hops
bunny-like along the moss,
twirling her stick over her head.
A sound like distant voices
calls Dah Ta! lingering on the upper note,
falling onto the lower,
a sound that then becomes a far-off
scream, a saw’s bite into logs.
Our feet pass softly on the monk green
moss flowing smoothly beneath the trees,
a wide peaceful stream of green,
then crunch and rattle on dried leaves
rustled under the soles of our feet,
and the wind, silent till now,
makes a sudden rush.
There are no words
but the music flowing around us
is like joy.
I wrote again after this winter's discovery. There's a surprising fatalism comes with destruction. There's the piled timber; one world's gone, there's another. But ... Hopkins: "as the heart grows older/It will come to such sights colder/By and by, nor spare a sigh/Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie; " But.
Worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie
as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder. – Hopkins
But I do sigh. Though it’s all business -
the workmanlike mark of the trucks
as they went into the forest, cut
timber, firewood, stacked it in orderly
heaps on the earth sweetened with boughs
of spruce. It’s all well done by decent men
doing a good day’s work. But I do sigh
for the monk whose realm I’d thought it,
for the carefully cleaned out undergrowth,
the tall straight trunks, the moss green
under it, like a careful carpet, in spring lit
with lady’s slippers, acres of them, for
the benches placed in odd turns in the path
dipping and rising through the fragrant wood,
the pagoda at the end looking down over
the brook crossed by a bridge leading
only to pathless woods on the other side,
the banks cleaned and green, the trout
swimming up the sparkling stream, the small
tidy dream of man, trees, water, coexisting,
each helped by each. I do sigh
for the monk, imaginary, or old and lost
in another time, for the lovely vision,
for the lovely trees, their whispering branches,
their light and shade, the dappled waters
running through, the silvered darters
lightly passing, for their paths, their clarity,
their lightness, their beauty, abundance,
order. Was it the woodcutter who made
this world of his woodlot, waiting
till it grew up and came to the end
he’d been knowing all along would come?
I sigh. I don’t make my living from the land,
but only walk through the woods
with my friend and my dog, only delight
in the illusion while it lasts that the trees
are free, are their own world, last. I do sigh.