When the tall tree fell right across my car's path,
not five minutes from home,
the winds gusting at forty miles an hour,
the firemen directing me to turn around,
I cancelled my trip.
Trees swayed, the wind blew,
and there it was, freedom!
A day unaccounted for. I'm supposed to be away,
they're keeping the mail, and I'm gone.
A chance to follow where I'm led.
Finding a path in the woods that needed my feet,
I begin, s-l-o-w-l-y, having to be nowhere,
poking along with my walking sticks,
just here, just now.
But I needed to see this! Three lady-slippers,
then four, luxuriously pink,
like a French madam, about to expire.
I had to see this!
Going slowly, I pause for each smooth, green leaf,
little sapplings, oak, maple, poplar,
newly-unfurled Solomon's Seal,
slow enough to caress, and kiss, and welcome,
these soft green beings back from Winter's slumber.
I stop, because I am going slow.
In the distance, in that precious pause,
the first singing wood thrush of the year.
Annelinde Metzner
Ox Creek
May 3, 2023
