Fragile Things

GOING WODWO

Shedding my shirt, my book, my coat, my life

Leaving them, empty husks and fallen leaves

Going in search of food and for a spring

Of sweet water.

I’ll find a tree as wide as ten fat men

Clear water rilling over its gray roots

Berries I’ll find, and crabapples and nuts,

And call it home.

I’ll tell the wind my name, and no one else.

True madness takes or leaves us in the wood

halfway through all our lives. My skin will be

my face now.

I must be nuts. Sense left with shoes and house,

my guts are cramped. I’ll stumble through the green

back to my roots, and leaves and thorns and buds,

and shiver.

I’ll leave the way of words to walk the wood

I’ll be the forest’s man, and greet the sun,

And feel the silence blossom on my tongue

like language.