13 December 2017

Communion



Source  (Muir Woods)


How to celebrate you, my forest, my tree trunks,
branches and leaves?  Does my entering you suffice?
Is taking time to absorb your grace enough?
You surely enter me through eyes and nose and heart,
you pierce me with pleasure and more—with love arrows.

You ask me to absorb you as I move forward, drawn
by one detail after another.  I opened the cover,
you say, now stay and read the book, leaf after leaf.

I’ll try to swallow you, body to body, one
mutual celebration, you giving more than you get,
ancient ones, as usual.  I know.  I feel it.

This is how we celebrate, bark to skin, gentle
kisses as we brush, fern to thigh, standing quiet
to breathe and sniff, sap to blood, and vein to vein.


My blog poems are rough drafts. 
Please respect my copyright. 

© 2017 Susan L. Chast



18 comments:

  1. I love, love, love this forest bathing poem!! Inhaling, absorbing, soaking in the tree souls: "sap to blood, and vein to vein." We all need to celebrate these amazing sentient beings with awe and reverence.

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  2. How shall we take it all in? It's a difficult task.

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  3. By staying long enough to read the book leaf by leaf, means to take the time to really savor. Is it enough just to be there? Maybe sometimes. Sometimes I just need to inhale cleaner air. But full immersion, it helps me to get back to center.

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  4. Your shinrin-yoku celebration is truly beautiful. You get in there melt and become a part of the scene. Your communion so beautifully shared

    "Is taking time to absorb your grace enough?"
    My favourite line


    Much💖love

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  5. love the forest setting....so close to nature...deeply touching..cool

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  6. The poem beautifully highlights the value of forests and social relationship with humankind...
    "through eyes and nose and heart,
    you pierce me with pleasure and more—with love arrows"- Aah...You have amazing ways of describing things! Lovely....

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  7. I love this immersion into the magic forest. Especially love the invitation to stay and read the whole book. Beautiful, Susan.

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  8. I enjoyed your celebration of nature / the forest in this poem. So much to 'absorb' in your words!

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  9. I have always been beguiled by the whispering of the forest right from when as a child I was able to explore the one close to home. It is such a beautiful place to unwind, sit back quietly against a tree and see and hear the place come alive. Your poem is really beautiful Susan.

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  10. I am a forest bather...Japanese: Shinrin-yoku ...I climb trees and sit in a special place and play my violin for them (and me). I love this immersion into the forest. I love the staying to read the book - like a temple or a church.

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  11. bark to skin, fern to thigh, sap to blood... oh wow Susan..that is just the perfect consummation of our love for nature!

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  12. I love that in the celebration, the speaker and forest dance as one... So much love.

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  13. Forests are like cathedrals...spiritual and holy places.

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  14. Beautiful and surreal piece, Susan. The coming together of the speaker and nature is most admirable.

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  15. Is there, I wonder, such a thing as an insufficient celebration? Isn't even the tiniest celebration welcomed by the universe?

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  16. Oh how wonderful that was! I was right there with you breathing in the forest as deep as I could

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