A Nature Lover's Dream

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

“In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful.” - Alice Walker

“Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.” - Khalil Gibran

“Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.”- Henry David Thoreau

As a child, I had to attend Sunday School at the local Baptist Church. I once asked the pastor why trees had to die in winter. “It’s a time’s eye view of life…” he replied and went on to explain; I would have been about ten and the phrase has stayed with for the best part of sixty60+ years although I have never heard it again. Mind you, as regular readers know, I have had significant hearing problems all my life, so… wry bardic grin

I already had a problem with conventional religion even then and suspect it was during that very conversation that I began my journey into Pantheism, although it would be many years before I even came across the word... 

A NATURE LOVER'S DREAM

There is a mountain,
I would have climbed if I could,
if only to stand
on its splendid snow-capped peak
be lord of all I survey;
spirit willing, but flesh weakened 
by fear and self-doubt,
even as it embraced mind-body-spirit
day and night, year in, year out

I’d visit the mountain,
gaze in awe at its magnificence,
envy climbers
with the courage and determination
to achieve their goal,
only ever vaguely aware of the earth
beneath my feet,
a breeze in my hair, birdsong everywhere,
asking only that I but look-see-hear

To reach the mountain,
I had first to negotiate woodlands,
the snowy peak,
my guide. my passion a life force in me,
reasoning not the need,
fuelling imagination with a desperation
vying for my every heartbeat
where I chanced to fall on a carpet of grass
in a cathedral of leaves

Once, I lay there awhile,
listening to a choir of wildlife sounds 
washing over me
like a light, sweet-smelling seasonal rain
watched butterflies,
heard crickets chirping, sat up to glimpse
a fallow deer peering at me
through a veil of leaves, a curious empathy
bonding us all too briefly

Slowly I found my feet again,
loath to leave so beautiful and natural
a creation, a heaven
of sensibility on earth, hand in glove 
with Earth Mother;
above, below, within, heart-and-soul 
delivering an epiphany,
conveying the presence of a live' spirituality
quantifying all humanity

Less fearful now of Time’s eye, even death,
for being promised to the earth

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2022