During the cutting
many of the small paths were ploughed up and widened, and, in my opinion,
spoiled. These paths were my familiar running routes and for a long while I
couldn’t bear to run on them, to such an extent that some parts of the forest became like a
stranger to me. This September I decided that, for better or worse, I would
reacquaint myself with the changed forest. My decision was inspired and supported by these lines from a Stanley Kunitz poem - “live
in the layers not on the litter”.
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| Stanley Kunitz |
| The Layers
I have walked through many
lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face,
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.
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