Lost by David Wagner.
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.
I heard this poem read today on a podcast.
Nature was most real to me - when my world fell apart.
It felt like a wide encompassing breathing all knowing thing.
It always was just
there.
We rarely think about it - or have to do anything for it to arrive - it is the backdrop to all of our lives.
When my emotions were to big to be in the house, I would step outside and the sun greeted me.
This huge big living space - held me.
This poem captures what I experienced.
"You are not lost. Wherever you are is Here."
When your world falls apart, you feel anchor-less; floating untethered.
A stranger to your life, and yourself.
This poem explains how I felt in its presence.
I felt present.
Held in place by the trees, the sun and the steady ground.
In a knowing presence - while I felt so unknown.
Unknowing of tomorrow.
Unknowing of who I would become.
Unknowing of what is truth.
Unknowing of where I had been.
And, nature seemed unfazed.
By my past or me.
Or the future.
It loved being here.
Now
As I was.
Not lost
but here.
My insides and outsides became one.
And, I one with it.
Small, and whole, and never alone.
An old friend asked me once, IF I still believed in God.
As if God was in a religion - a cult-like religion. And without a religion - God disappears.
It seems most probable that God is too big for any religion.
