You ask I follow, but I can’t see you.
Gone in a flash between leaves
like a sudden gust.
And I don’t know what is it I’m asked to follow.
My own life, in footsteps,
this disturbance in the undergrowth,
here and gone as the foraging birds.
And what is the nature of this thing
that hints its path for me.
This fleeting glimpse soon shrouded by leaves.
The part of me perhaps
that imagines a myriad of possibilities.
This part of you that attends to me.
Perhaps it’s simply that movement itself is life,
and any measure forward
is an opening into newness.
And any hint need be enough
to trust the places we find ourselves,
in this forest of the world in which we live.
Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
Living Tree Poetry 