Up this morning, on a path,
grass beside, trees overhead,
I came upon in sudden turn
a spread of bushes near a fence
canopying a dark cool cove
mostly hidden by the leaves
densely woven as a thatched hut
roof might be in a jungle grove,
or the canvas wrap of an old teepee,
with the leaf-meal mulched soft earth beneath,
and there to me was given straight
a personal and very private
invitation into a space,
an other-dimension enchanted place
with a long wild history all its own,
(different from the history of this world)
with porous memories of pluck and love
playing over and over again
in the whispery air of the shaded tuck.
My heart leapt up as I hunkered down
and my eyes, adjusting, recognized
this hideaway from long before,
from far away across the world,
the old familiar scent the same
as in the summer days of childhood,
building forts in the camouflaged bush
deep within the dangerous wild-wood,
underneath joy-haunted wind.
So rare to find it now, this air
from that maddening just-beyond somewhere
that we all touch when we are not looking,
and cannot, even if we try in the moment
to drive the memory away
by sternly telling to ourselves
the time is late, that we are grown,
the minutes burn, we must return
to the serious business of today.
Photo Credit: Pixabay.com. Creative Commons License.