Poems and Other Writings

This page is dedicated to "singing" the landscapes of our inner ecology and earth to life. Each month, together we'll explore a new poem or piece of writing. We'll see how language that focuses on the particulars of the outer wilderness, can return us to the truth of our inner wilderness.

Please feel free to ponder the questions elicited by the poem below. Memorize a stanza or two. Write a poem of your own. And, if you like, please email me with your own observations, poetry, and thoughts. I'd love to hear from you.

January's Poem:

Lost

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

© David Wagoner

• After you have read the poem, sit for a moment quietly contemplating a question or challenge that you are facing right now. Allow the images and thoughts that arise to come to you without judging them.
  
  
• Let the answers find you. Don't force anything. You are in the forest of your imagination, the place that holds the answers if you can trust and have patience.
  
  
• When you are ready, start writing beginning with the words, "I am not lost…."
  
  

< Read previous poems

< Return to this month's poem


back to top