Chris Skiles
“Mountains there, mountains there.
Mountains everywhere”
The Old Man of the Forest,
Says,
Surrounding us are evergreen and cedar;
We are on a precipice.
Looking down the slopes of mountains and trees
As far as the eye can see,
And then the Old Man says to me, “We must
Descend,” And into the forest
We go deeper.
In the valley,
the sweet boughs weep
Rain and sleet,
Our horses plod along.
My spiked shoes soak in the mud
The puddles are long and deep,
The Old Man hums along;
We go on our Road.
“What brings you here?” the Old Man says
“When civilization is so much neater.”
I just nod my head and walk along, nodding to
The Old Man and the Cedars.
The weather will change
The sun breaks through
In small shafts
The spider drinks the dew,
The hummingbird flew
And into the Forest,
We go deeper.
The Old Man
With his purple-cone hat
Picks up a stone
And tosses it in that
Old well we come upon.
No one seems to be home,
The Witch is not about.
The horses stand still,
their breath a mist;
The Old Man gives a little shout.
“I guess she’s not here” he surmises.
Whistling to the horses,
We go on looking for prizes,
In our isolation.
“What makes a nation?” the Old Man asks.
“Is it trees and rivers and mountains? And men with whiskey
Flasks?”
I’m dry now,
As dry as I’ll ever be.
Two things I love; the Forest
And the Sea.
And it really means a lot to me,
to walk with the Old Man.
One day I may look back;
But I shall be gone.