In fact, the trees are murmuring under your feet,

a buried empathy; you tread it.

High over your head, the canopy sieves light; a conversation

you lip-read. The forest keeps different time;

slow hours as long as your life, so you feel human.

So you feel more human; persuaded what you are

by wordless breath of wood, reason in resin.

You might name them - oak, ash, holly, beech, elm-

but the giants are silence alive, superior, and now you are all instinct; 

swinging the small lamp of your heart

as you venture their world: the green, shadowy, garlic air your ancestors breathed.

Ah, you thought love human till you lost yourself in the forest, but it is more strange.

These grave and patient saints who pray and pray and suffer your little embrace.