Off Track

Bumpy satinash with rainforest characteristic 'cauliflory' where flowers and fruit grow directly on the tree trunks.

Off Track

Escaping too many people
I walk off the track
into the trees and eventually
find silence and solitude
where for a few minutes the forest
has me, all of me, here
in love with the chaotic tangle of
death and life
my eyes sliding along graceful buttress roots,
heart skipping in viney spirals,
breath as expansive as fan palms
until sidling between drooping fronds
I collect a veil of spider silk
and some sticky memory tugs on my sleeve
saying wait a while
and confusion takes all my attention
while I patiently unpick every tiny barb
absorbed in the minutia of small difficulties
that have no part of this place
and yet, while I am still
in the focus of freeing myself
the silence of the forest
becomes gradually overtaken
hum by peep, chortle by screech,
a Babel of birds and insects
chorusing Here and Now,
Here and Now,
and I am.

Platter sized fungi growing in front of a buttressed tree,