The Enchanted Wood

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

[UPDATE -  14th December 2013 - Video (below) added as also available on my You Tube channel . at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGCv54LM4yo For anyone interested in other videos and the poems I read,  you are welcome to visit http://www.youtube.com/rogerNtaber]

This poem last appeared on the blog in July 2009. It is repeated today especially for ‘Candace and Pierre’ who celebrate their first wedding anniversary today, and a have baby due in the summer. Congratulations, and may all three of you enjoy many happy years together.

Candace especially liked this poem as her mother died some years ago yet ‘she is always with me, especially when Pierre and I take walks in the countryside. Perhaps it is because I grew up on a farm and she was a farmer’s wife?’ Whatever, it is a lovely sentiment and one I share in the sense I've always felt that Earth Mother takes care to see to it that those we have loved and died always stay close to us.

Whimsical, you say? Well, yes, maybe, but I do whimsy sometimes; always have and I dare say always will.

This poem is a villanelle.

THE ENCHANTED WOOD

Kind ghosts, smiling at me
wherever I go…
among leaves of memory

‘Keep it safe, the old tree’
they whisper low,
kind ghosts smiling at me

Close friends and family,
all springtime on show
among leaves of memory

On a nature trail to eternity
where love’s seeds grow,
kind ghosts smiling at me

If the self its own enemy,
let its colours show
among leaves of memory

Keeping such company,
the poet I would be;
kind ghosts smiling at me
among leaves of memory

Copyright R. N. Taber 2009

[Note: This poem will appear in Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber scheduled for (UK) publication in spring 2012.]