listening to nature

I hear the birds and I hear the branches
I hear the vehicles and I hear the leaves
I hear the people, the animals
and the machinery to keep us cool
and still
I seek to understand, to objectify, to name,
to satisfy my mind.

When my mind nudges in
for a turn at the microphone
she reminds me, again,
of past thoughts, past concerns
and future anxieties
I am trying to let fly away with the birds
I cannot see.

I hear these sounds,
I hear the music they orchestrate
but apart from the trees and leaves
I cannot see their sources.

I cannot see their source
and yet they are there,
they still reach my ears
somehow.

They come and go,
bending off and into each other
seamlessly
as if following a score
or being led by a conductor at the podium.
They trust in each other.
I close my eyes, expand my ears,
trusting the sounds will reach me
in nature’s perfection
without a need for rationality or manipulation.

Imagine, just for a moment,
the freedom, the weightlessness,
the joy,
of trusting that life will unfold as it is meant
if we are open enough
to hear it
to receive it
and to accept it.

see the forest too

Stop where you are.
Look at the tree, the single tree
in front of you,
and the one beside.
But also, look beyond.
Look out, at the giant forest
standing tall in the background,
where some trees in the front
can be distinguished,
but the further you look
the more they all blur together.
A sea of greens and browns,
needles and leaves,
rocks and twigs
individual, but collective.

When you cannot see the forest for the trees,
you lose the collective.
Stop, step back,
appreciate the forest
and your tree within it.