Some of My Best Friends
Beaver Meadow
Some of my best friends are forests
We navigate this world together
And try to make each other better
I talk and they listen
They speak and it’s given
That I stop in my tracks
To listen back
We watch each other change
Like the weather and the feathers
That follow us both home
Knowing we’re never
Really, truly alone
We sit side by side
Watching the birds fly by
On lazy summer afternoons
Filled with lost loons
Or are they herons
Or cranes
I’m not good enough yet
To know who’s who
We both marvel at the green
The grass and the trees
That fill our sight
Left and right
Right and left
From the warp and the weft
Of this verdant tapestry
Made from pines and honey bees
We give each other gifts
I receive the song of a wood thrush
With an open heart
And forget-me-nots
Whose little blue flowers
Taste like communion wafers
For some reason
I give them my attention
And offerings of water and prayer
With promises to not kill the flies
And mosquitoes
Within reason
The trees,
They speak
Through whistles and creaks
On the winds
As the light shines through
Their needles and leaves
They tell me to write
On the din.
They’ve changed my life
Undoubtably for the better
And I just hope
That these birds and trees
And all the life in between
Would say the same
About me.
Thank you,
Beaver Meadows,
Chestnut Ridge,
Reinstein Woods,
Sprague Brook,
The Silent Woods,
Old Scarbuck,
And so many other places
Whose names have changed
After we snatched this land
Like thieves in the night
Filled with smallpox and blight
And weapons of war
That tore
Wide holes through societies
Wiser than mine.
But these places and I
Don’t always agree;
I taste them
And they fight me
In fact,
To make sure I understand
The workings of reality,
They sent a horse fly after me
While thinking I should come back
And paint these woods
Like one of those French girls,
The fly chomped down on my earlobe
I run away in a surprising amount of pain
Shouting swearwords aplenty
Horse fly bites
Hurt more than they really should
The woods remind me
That this is still a wild place
What a mixed bag
This hike has been
The fly must’ve struck a vein
Because my ear bleeds and bleeds
Or maybe perhaps
It was an artery
I ask one nicely to stop circling my head
Okay,
Maybe not so nicely
And like a friend on a bad day,
It doesn’t listen
Because apparently it wanted
To live in this poem, too
That fucking fly is lucky
That it moved too quickly
For me to break
A certain promise
I saw its friend
Later on a boardwalk of sorts
Between beautiful dragonflies and reeds
I studied it for a while
Took its picture,
Gave it the finger,
And obviously spared its life
All while my earlobe
Throbbed
Some of my best friends
Indeed.