The High Wood - new poem, new collection

The High Wood

 

For Linda Ibbotson

 

The great vault of the trees soar airward

Their almighty trunks being rooted to the floor;

Similarly, they ground me too to the earth,

Where I walk typically with my dog.

 

Veering always toward the rose garden

To witness the first flower of the year,

Each mesmeric petal, each segregated pattern

Opens outward in a spiral mirroring the sound of the conch.

 

Every year, you wander up to the castle,

Crossing the burnt sienna sand at Barnageeragh,

Till you arrive in the cool of the wood.

 

Up there, out on the Heideggerian trail,

Deep in the clearing of all thought’s pathway,

 You suddenly arrive at the blooming, coronation flower.