My May Tetrahaikai Walk - Treeing a Poem

I. Knocking Before Entering

My walk begins in an open meadow surrounded on all sides by trees. The way in passes under an ancient cedar and I bow. The well-worn path continues along the edge of the field, skirting tall eastern white pines. But knowing that this time of year the grass is still close to the ground, I take the opportunity to walk the gentle rolling meadow in its middle. Metaphorically, I may not be in Kansas any more; I think the land may be. I see the familiar edge of the woods ahead, where the path, entering the forest, ducks between ashes and maples, but I hear a strange and somewhat disturbing sound there, as if the forest was giving notice. Of course it was just my imagination running away with my dream.

The trees, alive, are making wild
sporadic roars in rhythmic warning—
a woodpecker flies to another red pine.

~Son Rivers 2007