We have been walking each day in the woods near where we live. We feel the season changing and each day we quietly observe the differences in the woods and the sky. We talk of great things and also inconsequential trivia. We are often silent and listen to the birds. Our favourite is the blackbird who scuttles across our path. Some mornings the squirrels throw acorns at us and it feels like they are trying to get our attention, not telling us to scram from their trees! We share with them our love for this wood, for this small and familiar part of the world around us, and for poetry.

This poem, a collection of simple words like the bones of this experience strung together into a body, is the best I could do today to describe the black birds, the woods and the sky as I feel it in the mornings. I wanted to capture it for National Poetry Day. In writing it, my sense of connection to this place and those I walked with was a powerful, healing balm at the end of a long working day. Poetry is like that – healing us, connecting us, giving us a chance to express our thoughts and feelings, bringing us into contact with the wild, world that is inside us.

feather

dark woods

sure path

foot fall

fifteen

forty four

our footsteps

girl

woman

blackbirds

undergrowth

we rustle

bark wood

humid layers

mushroom mud

the whole earth

we walk

here

and return

the sky

paua

mackerel

oyster

it is

an ocean

dark shadow

birds

charcoal

wings

a lifespan

just here

where we can see it

in the middle

of all things

a feather

falls

slowly

softly

a miracle of drift

like mana

falling to the road