A poem by William Stafford, which quickens my heart. When I read this poem to myself or allowed to others, I think of our ancestry. For some of us, The wiles of Africa stirring with the calls of gorillas on the forest floor. For others it is the chittering from mammals living in the trees.
Where ever you believe your ancestors came from, know this.
We have not come very far from those places. The alpha silverback male hording females or the Safety found high above the ground.
Atavism
Sometimes in the open you look up where birds go by, or just nothing, and wait.
OA dim feeling comes
you were like this once,
there was air, and quiet; it was by a lake, or maybe a river you were alert as an otter and were suddenly born like the evening star into wide still worlds like this one you have found again, for a moment, in the open.
Something is being told in the woods: aisles of shadow lead away; a branch waves; a pencil of sunlight slowly travels its path. A withheld presence almost speaks, but then retreats, rustles a patch of brush. You can feel the centuries ripple generations of wandering, discovering, being lost and found, eating, dying, being born. A walk through the forest strokes your fur, the fur you no longer have. And your gaze down a forest aisle is a strange, long plunge, dark eyes looking for home.
For delicious minutes you can feel your whiskers wider than your mind, away out over everything.
William Stafford
Photo credit: Deborah Taylor-French
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Thanks for your lovely note. Don’t know how I miss it. Haven’t been blogging much. Need to get back into the habit. Best, Deborah