When Aches Persist, I Grow Resentful of Gravity

[rejectomorph]

Soft wind here sounds empty, like air collapsing into a void, but I know it is mostly the sound of trees resisting movement. Nights when wind is the loudest sound I sometimes stand listening to that whir of leaves and needles which arrives from all directions and imagine the forest, wearied, giving up the fight and floating into the sky. I imagine stars flickering behind moving groves overhead, the earth a flow of shadows, and a granular rain of dirt released by dangling roots. I find it a peaceful vision, this letting go of ancient woods, no longer stolid and strained, but relaxed and freed from the soil's confinement. Sometimes I think the wind is like a siren, singing of how there is nothing that could not benefit by being gifted with the ability to float free and ride the air. A walk in the floating woods by starlight would be nice.



Sunday Verse

The Waking

by Theodore Roethke


I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.