Hogsback

and yet once you have stood in it

and felt it licking on your palate

it has marked your soul forever*

you are a lively bubble trapped inside this crazy globe

a place where discoveries keep unfolding

here i become a time-traveller

where the future, present and past

mesh all together in your

smoky wood and damp clay smells

your elements are throbbing and restless

always ready to orchestrate my visions

you are arresting the way you

chant ripples around the tree trunks

you make me dream fleshier dreams

oh how you incite me to be alive

with your hypnotizing frogs drip drip dripping

their soft bird-like whistles and

the kôk kôk kôk of your redwinged loeries

you pulsate incessantly in the plant

animal and elemental matter

so fierce and so gentle

this sacred pulsing makes me want to break out in song

it makes me humble and invigorated

that i am kin to this pumping life makes me want to weep

weep with the recognition of sharing similarities in

texture, colour, cells, behaviour, flux and mood

you are in me and i am in you

may your soil and dust cling forever to my calves

may your trees keep growing taller

may the stars keep on haunting your dark and silken nights

may the theatre of your clouds and mist never end

may your abundant streams continue to

etch your poetry in the landscape

thank you for your temperament

your wildness and

your strong-willed living force

it is hard to leave this place for here is

the closest I have come 

to glimpse eternity

*quote from a previous poem of mine between the cricket and the silence