We are told what to do:
To do our duty, to work,
To have a family and children,
To accumulate wealth and pleasure,
To wait until we are old to enter the forest,
To wait until we are grown to seek God.

But what of today?
Why not enter the forest together?
Young, with our noble hearts on fire,
To feel the murmur of the brook,
To hear the song of the sparrow,
To smell the night blooming jasmine;
Must we wait until our souls dry,
Before we disappear into the forest?
Must we wait until the years unfold,
Before we enter paradise?

Why not go today?
Deep inside to the heart of nature,
Where primeval flames flicker,
Where we are made raw,
In the verdure and furnace of foliage.
Why wait for the dying breaths to call,
To think these things of God and spirit,

Why wait to be filled with love,
Why wait to dwell together,
Why wait to be free?
Why wait to make our union,
In the calyx of the eucalyptus,
In the shadow of the banyan tree?

Must we dry ourselves in the desert,
When humidity and silence are ours,
When the dark wood will bring us out,
Backward into the recess of mankind?
Must we give into the twisted flow,
When we know where the river runs,
When the natural world calls us back,
To the crucible of our Maker’s hands?

~ 

Author: Hunter Joslin

Editor: Sarah Kolkka

Image: Katia Romanova/Flickr