Forest Walker

I was back again 

I’ll be here again 

And I think I’ll remember this — 

I walked in a forest 

climbed up wooden stairs 

to waterfalls that trickled 

into small creeks — 

I had been here before 

when I was young 

blurred in a family photo — 

Today, I think, 

still tomorrow 

still yesterday — 

I walked in a forest 

where the people walked two feet ahead We are going to the next, they said 

but I was staring at the back of their heads — body stumbling — 

Perhaps members of a private club unapproachable in the present 

intangible in the future 

but I knew them somewhere in the past —

•

Years passed 

I was now young 

in an old forest 

I think I had been here before 

the air was chilly and the ground was damp 

a single squirrel darted in front of my step — I fell to the ground 

and hit a wooden step — 

there was no blood 

there was a pool of it 

I kept going, looping and forgetting — I walked 10 miles through the forest and came to an unreachable place with four white walls without ceiling 

there was a waiting room 

I sat on a white bench 

and waited for my name.