Reflections on Earth Day, 2018, Toohey Forest

A softer, supple, subtle world

Where curves and curls abound

And life and death at every scale

Are waiting to be found

And slowly cycling processes

Like lichen eating stone

Yet rarely with the excesses

Of humans in their homes

Where grasshoppers that look like rocks

Are dwarfed by giant nuts

And deep pin-cushioned needle-beds

Fill sandstones’ weathered ruts

Where tiny fungi fairy stools

Stand tall, and straight, and proud

Against the shaded rocky walls

In tiny light shafts found

A skink’s head slowly reappears

From a deep, dark, safe, rock cleft

To catch the briefest glimpse of sun

That powers nature’s weft

The weave continues, silently

On caterpillars’ legs

Where colonies have left the trees

To build communal webs

The stragglers still arriving

Replete in stiff fine hairs

To find a hole and burrow in

With others safely there

And all around soft plays sweet light

As breezes move the leaves

And golden candles — oh so bright!

Illuminate life’s scenes

Of weathered sandstone, leaves and soil

Of boulders dark and grey

Drawn to this place, how blessed was I

This now, this where, Earth Day