The Voice In The Wood Poem by Barry Middleton

In summer I could hear
the voice in the wood
when the wood was alive
with slithering confusion
and life was a hot green blur
as the creek ran rushes.
In winter the murmurs
of forgotten echoes call me
to a childhood bridge,
a bridge to dreaming.
A final silent day
before the spring
when the voice commands
an ultimate act of faith,
I flirt with denial.
But quite accidentally,
the elocution of returning birds,
the flat statement of green tongues.

I have grown familiar with broken things,
the despondent and the desperate
and I have wandered in tangled mazes
rich with mocking disappointment
for the bogus gold of spring.
And I have picked the rusted heap
searching for a bit of color,
listening for a rustling,
an affirmation of life.
I have felt the sharpened edge
of unrequited aspiration
and I have been amazed
to see the throng mirrored
in a shattered shard of looking glass.

Here I sit, retired of hearing
old truths reiterated
from un-inquisitive oracles.
Here I receive,
unabashed and without bias,
the tenable with the probable,
the unuttered undeniable,
the randomness
of inspiration.
Here I affirm the voice
regardless of school,
regardless of intention
and beyond misconception.
Here I assert un-banished survival.

The voice babbled
like a young creek
in a hurry to grow with rivers.
It spoke confused truths
and non-confusing lies.
It laid down hot and cold
explaining creation in fairy tales.
It was a kind voice,
substantial in tone,
reassured and reassuring.
It was the voice of functional rule.
It spoke only to point onward.

Gray air of dawn
pierced by a natal moon
broken by the whispering wisdom
of a child's question.

Deep was the wood and deep
its rhapsodies without danger.
Beasts as large as houses roamed,
silver mansions reigned
and clear water flowed.
Among the hills with holy names,
beneath the eagle's beech,
a secret lake, and filled with love,
eluded me by day for only dreams
could show the way.
Those were the free times
before the voice began
to warn of the end of dreams,
of the time the dreams are real.

I fell to my knees
and spoke with sacred forces
making timid pleas
for undisputed phrases
or in their stead a peaceful place
to lay my head.
I was answered
by a non-committal breeze.

There with wonder did I walk
and there with laughter did I seek
and there with ignorance did hear
all vindicated dreams and fear.

The voice never ceased,
it trickled and roared like the tide,
it drew me farther in,
it pushed me out
to test the gold of spring.
It demanded answers
from speculation.
It demanded choices
from induction.
It wet me down,
it dried me out,
it made me think,
it made me doubt.

Then rippled in the waters
a human halo, a blessing
essential as dew
dawning a quiet pond.
The voice proclaimed
the consecration of a man.

I believed the voice.
I loved, I gave and got,
I lost and was resigned.

And the trial
was a trial of existence,
of hot and cold,
of wet spring nights
and dry winter days,
was a trial of strength,
of mind and muscle
against life's tendency
for torment.
I played with dreams
and the voice played
with memory.
And I played with thoughts
like notions from rare books
and I sailed my toy boat,
pieced together chanciness
in the storm.

Then did the voice crack
with age and a vision
of the damned.
Then did I see the
cracked wisdom of
the world and death.
Then did the voice
roar like a winter river
beneath a lost bridge
to nothingness.
It washed me
in the wisdom
of despair.

Death is worth life
the voice rattled -
it comes.
Strive not for death,
it comes and the voice
of what was will cease
to the gasping cries
of a new age.
Search not for death
and the wood
is a constant symphony.