All day in the forest

Joaquin Miller Park (Oakland, CA)

I spent the day among redwood trees, and I remembered this poem by William Stafford...

You reading this: Stop

Don't just stay tangled up in your life.
Out there in some river or cave where you
could have been, some absolute, lonely
dawn may arrive and begin the story
that means what everything is about.

So don't just look, either:
Let your whole self drift like a breath and learn
its way down through the trees. Let that fine
waterfall-smoke filter its gone, magnified presence
all through the forest. Stand here till all that
you were can wander away and come back slowly,
carrying a strange new flavour into your life.
Feel it? That's what we mean. So don't just
read this – rub your thought over it.

Now you can go on.

– William Stafford, from Even in Quiet Places
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