Walking In The Woods

I clear my mind before entering. My chest fills to the breaking point with air, my belly extends. In and out. In and out. The car is the known space, and I sit still for a little while, looking into the world of green. Time to move.

My right foot hits the earth, then the heel of the left. On and on I move, my feet in rhythm, my arms following. My breath moving. I reach up to push some hair out of my eyes with my right hand, I look over to my right. There are some red silk flowers on the lawn. Close by are other faded objects of sadness, left for one who might never see. Everything is cultivated and sculpted, “control” is the word that comes to mind. Beyond the small fence is all chaotic earth and woods. Completely wild, exploding in sex and death and birth and decomposition.
My feet take me through the boundary between the known and the wild. I enter another kingdom and I am home. Only it is different. And I am different. And I have never left. And I have changed, and it has changed and we are both the same.
Here, the rational is buried. Here, the birds know how to build nests and crickets don’t have to be taught what to eat. The mind is not needed. Language does not bend the branches to its will, it all moves, no good or evil, no sentimentality. Here, we move as we must and here, I shed my skin.

It has all changed so dramatically. The river is smaller, the weeds that line the muddy bank are taller. I walk through the same woods, yet different woods, new trees, new birds, new water and leaves. It is the same place, on the same patch of earth, but it is all new, just as every moment we burst and are born again. There are new creatures that scamper and fly and burrow. A new body that has brought me here and takes me through the thicket of green and brown.

I want to follow the creek.

I hear birds up in the leaves like hidden wind chimes. Calming the air are crickets or cicadas. Their intuitive noise slows me down even more. My right foot takes a step forward, my left foot rises and hits the earth. My right hand scratches my thigh.

I walk a little deeper. Just the woods in all directions. Life without language, life without a structure of concrete morals or rationality. In these wooden arms, in this body of green and brown and sex and life and death, everything is new and everything is old. Everything is here, present and eternal. Here, beyond the edge.