Girl in the Wood

There is a forest of the soul that dreams can conjure,
Where creatures strange as dreams are seen,
And this one, tired of lights and people
Made a pathway to its places few had been.
This is the wood of dreamy strangeness,
And I, among its creatures wandered there,
Amidst its green and leafy places,
Through its thorns and damp cool air.

Then out into a clearing,
The beech nut path had led me,
Rounded by the sky and by the wood,
And there naked in the half light,
Still as a fawn in wild flowers and grasses,
A lovely maiden stood.

She was brown as the beech nut caskets
That lined the way as I came,
And like the soft silk of spring beech leaves,
Her skin was just the same.
For an age we stood and pondered,
What we saw in each other’s eyes.
And all to be said had been spoken,
And to talk with the tongue would be lies.

Then in a voice that was silent,
She called to my every cell.
She called in a way forbidden,
In a speech as old as mankind;
She called in a tone that shook me,
And I suffered the longings of hell.

But the voice within kept warning,
To think of those I loved,
To picture any woman,
Any girl who was beloved.
And that was the only way backwards,
From this supernatural shore.

Then to that clearing came forward,
One whom the trees had hid,
The great god Pan with his escort’s,
To aid Nature in her bid.
He told of a million secrets,
Of as many unearthly delights,
This nut brown woman could give me,
Through eternity’s days and nights.

But I clung to my picture of women,
I feared the mind diffuse,
That over all earth pervaded,
And for singleness had no use.
It was God’s idea to be different,
To rise up all alone,
to grow as a man individual,
And have a soul of one’s own.

Yes, I clung to the love of my lover,
The commonness of a friend,
And the figures before me faded,
Into that woodland glen.

Slowly I traced my footsteps,
Back through the leaf green ways,
Over the beaten pathways,
Through the damp cool dells.
I can’t say I’m happy I’ve lost her,
For she’ll never come back again.

But sometimes I catch a whisper,
In the touch of a summer night’s rain.
That if I stay with mankind,
As the great star clusters stir,
Could it be the love I came back for,
Will grow to be like Her?

Copyright ©2003 Tony Crisp