At the still point
I see you there again
one time your touches were clothing enough
within these trees you were different
you bear the woods
these saplings are your children
You lower a head-dress of bent sticks and secure it
you strap to yourself a breast-plate of clawed
rope bark
you fit the broad leaves of oak
to your hands
like mittens of blood
You say come,
I enter the woods
for I have no choice
to hunt the mystery of you
surrounding me
light bleeds from the clearing,
root rise
fluted moulds turn blue in the falling light
You know my loneliness
you taught me with your branches
when they held me tightly
giving beauty to my pain
when I lay down in the wake
of the slashed tree
you cover me,
as you always did
only this time
I won’t leave, my ancient lover,
I will be your Green Man
and you will be my bride.
5 replies on “Return to Oxleas Woods”
Oh, how good the poem and the artwork!!!I have been thinking lately there just isnt enough visuals out there with the view up towards the treetops:))…
The treetops photo was taken last winter, as I laid still on my back there was an eerie quality to it that I couldn’t describe. A kind of having been here before in some form or other.
The poem is and was an expression of becoming and belonging. Of interest to me, is the neo-pagan view that the green man represents a common form of personal transformation in meditations or ritual…of a personal visionary experience of “becoming” a green man or woman. I felt an intuitive connection of both male and female forms of becoming.
This is among your best ones xx
This poem I mean
Oh really? You’re a better judge than I am.