Alone in the Forest

David Whyte

David Whyte's biography appears before his poem, "Ten Years Later” in the first section. “Alone in the Forest” is reprinted from Songo for Coming Home (Many Rivers Press, 1989).

It is only in the forest that I realize how many rooted structures exist inside of me, and it is in the forest now, with my breath lifting in billowing spirals in the cold air, that I am suddenly released into the miracle of small things; — a bird’s movement on a branch, the sound of water still dripping from yesterday's rainstorm. In the forest everything in the mind can be given away, so that the heart can be open to the intense concentration that natural objects demand. Through this concentration where nothing exists but the object itself, enormous energy opens out through the woodland silhouette. By allowing this silence, nothing is held in the mind beyond the lime in which it happens: the undergrowth rustles without judgment, the marsh can sleep undisturbed by comparison or memory. Out of this emerges an energy that can only be described as praioe; and as this intensifies, even this must give way like the distant call in the forest, so that this energy opens up a void in the center of all things. At this point the praise suddenly becomes mutual and I stand revealed ... and even this in no way diminishes this luxuriant moss-covered log which creaks, scattering the birds as I sit on it.