I will be in the forest while you read so I thought this would be a timely poem to share. I wrote it a few months ago after laying in the forest for over an hour, as I’m lucky enough to live a ten minute walk away from the ravine. I hope your week is off to a lovely start, and cannot wait to return and share my travel stories!
Decomposition
Today I walked to the forest to decompose
Because I’m too afraid to lie
in bed for the whole day
Staring at my demons with two screens as distractions
I walked to the forest and stepped over the property line
Just behind the theater and the gymnasium, an entire world that’s frequently ignored
Faint smell of cigarette smoke and gasoline until deeper into the trees
Their roots and the soil and the mossy logs I melt into
I listened to songs and wished I could write the way songwriters do
It all rhymes and it’s brilliant and there’s metaphors and all of this beautiful blurry symbolism
I would give anything to write just like them
Took my shoes off and walked across a mossy log
Balanced on top of it staring out at the valley in the forest
If I come here enough, maybe the forest will begin to remember me
Maybe tree limbs will start to greet me with warm embraces
And moss will grow in between my fingertips and around my wrists
Maybe the leaves will fall over my stomach and legs like an autumn blanket
And the bugs will crawl around my face and rest beside me, breathing along with me
Maybe we will become closer
maybe we will become one, if they will have me
I don’t want to be a stranger to the forest, the trees
If I could, I’d ask the trees how old they are
Do you think it’s disrespectful to ask trees how old they are
I would ask if they ever got cold or lonely or what they thought of their home
I would ask if they had families, friends, partners
I have this fear that the forest isn’t sure of how much it means to me
And that when I try to express my appreciation it comes off egotistical or something but really
It’s so lovely to have a place to decompose
Today while I began to decompose I began to regret
Things from the past, things I thought I had left behind but that come back to haunt
It seems an undistracted brain is the perfect place for regrets to nest
There is a nest on the top of my head, two or three eggs in it
They are heavy, and the longer they sit and the longer my mind turns the more it hurts
A regret’s only purpose is to paralyze us, a piece of advice I have recalled from long ago
The sun is starting to beam through the trees and I’m ready to walk again
But the weight is too much to bear
One by one, the eggs hatch, birds fly, some nesting in the greenery and some flying far away
I stand up and brush the sticks and dirt off my back, out of my hair
Walk towards the road, back to thickening cigarette smoke and puddles of gasoline
Away from the family I know nothing about and back to the friends who know too much
Oh, the romance of decomposing
-B
One of my favorites. The imagery is amazing. An artist should illustrate this one.