Why Speak When You Can Listen?

I’ll never understand why people speak in wild places.

Meadows and forests have their own phrases.

Tie your tongue. Give the forest your ear.

You may find more than you thought you would hear.

The frogs chirp. The woodpeckers thrum.

Wild birds lilt and marsh hawks hum.

Point your ear to the sky and decipher the secrets

divulged by the leaves as they rustle in sequence.

Silence your thoughts and drop all your pretenses.  

When in pines and fields, open all of your senses.

Wind sends the sweetgrass to tickle your nose.

And damp marsh air smells like licorice ropes.

Shadows cast themselves down through the trees,

while large feathered raptors soar on the breeze.

Balsam and cedar calm chattering minds.

Lichen and moss soothe ills of all kinds.

These conversations are as old as the stars.

They belong to not one, but to all – they are ours.