Forest Bathing

There is a way of entering the forest

when the breeze of the trees

becomes your guide

when the cool gray-green days

and humid blue-green nights

become your own skin

where the unfurling paths

through the emerald light

become flowing streams.

Paths as luminous rivers

for your two uncovered feet,

salmon-like and aching,

to work out their

strange haunted yearning

for a home whose vista

they haven't yet seen

yet somehow know

just the same.

There is a way of approaching the self

without a heavy hand

when the heart-mind

slowly becomes unburdened by the past,

where the body

listening with the whole of itself

finally becomes attuned

to all the subtle happenings

in the realm not yet stained

by the faithless world of man.

originally appeared in The School of Soft-Attention