the wise man who went into the woods

2003-08-27, 4:24 p.m.

the wise man who went into the woods to listen, is now called the fool. sitting on the layered soil, he selected his senses, touching them so gently so they could receive his waiting mind with pungent kisses. he could see the shadow of an owl in the moonless sky, shades of black rubbed into his body. he listened to the old oak tree, and he heard the stories of the mountain lions that used to slink through the rocks and the trees. he heard a story of when the earth shook so hard that all the trees dug their roots as deep as they could, for fear that the world had turned over. this is the man now hears the sirens and the cars on the hillsides.

he may still sit in the long gone forest where the old oak tree was once rooted; the layers of soil are scabbed, covered with the shadow of a moonless flight from an owl. he hears the stories, they no longer unravel into his insides, they are tightly packaged and so very difficult to hear. -assembly lines of metal and plant, light posts buzzing their adolescent visions like a jealous lover.