The Wood Has Many Doors

The wood has many doors Walk in. Bring your empty day and fill it with trees Bend down on your two stiff knees Stuff chanterelles or cones into a dusty bag The owl has drawn the blinds on his wide eyes His window of air will open again in moonlight Firs are talking in riddles, dropping their needles Onto the orange and tawny trampled path beneath By the loch, a heron meditates on fish In his grey Zen cloak, one leg frozen in zazen Nothing is happening, nothing that you can see Ants reshuffle a pack of leaves On the edge of your eyes’ periphery Are you surprised how old and fat you have become? Are you surprised how life has leaked away unnoticed? Stay. Leave. Linger. It’s all one to the stone By the badgers’ trail. The clouds dissolve And reassemble, ever the same but different